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How do we package food products sustainably in coming decades? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I imagine all plastics will be out of the question. I'm wondering about what ways food packaging might become regulated to upcycling in the domestic or even commercial space. Assuming energy remains a $ scarce $ commodity I don't imagine recycling glass will be super practical as a replacement. Do we move to more unpackaged goods and bring our own containers to fill at markets? Do we start running two way logistics chains where a more durable glass container is bought and returned to market? How do we achieve a lower energy state of normal in packaging goods?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's probably an economy of scale thing. On a 5000ac farm, we'll use hundreds to thousands of liters of every variety of chem and the product is measured in the millions of kg. So using small, non-reusable containers is just a pain in the ass, regardless of the waste it generates.

So all respect due to UK or other countries in Europe, but they're small potatoes (no pun intended) in the food production scheme, and their waste to end product ratio will be drastically out of whack to the main source of agricultural products like US, Canada, Russia, Australia and Brazil/Argentina. And I know that we aren't much different in our production methods to those other heavy hitters. So, you're right, agricultural methods aren't the same around the world, but when you get into farming at scale, that's how things are done.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Ok, but we're getting dragged into a tangential debate about farming when really my point was that we need to look at waste through the whole supply chain, from farming ingredients to getting put on the shelves. I'm sure we could pick apart the contribution of any one part of that chain and debate how significant it is. Together, at all points in the chain, there is plastic waste that the consumer doesn't see.

(And btw Canada isn't in the top 20 of global producers, according to the IMF / CIA World Factbook as at 2018; the EU is number 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture)

Edited to add: this 2022 UN report states that plastics are used extensively in agriculture and goes into how they are used and how they enter soil and water supplies: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/40403/Plastics_Agriculture.pdf

And this is another UN report on the issue, stating that Asia is the largest user of plastics in agriculture. When China and India are two of the largest agricultural producers, that's an issue https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1107342