How do we package food products sustainably in coming decades?
How do we package food products sustainably in coming decades?
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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I would love to see increased standardization in the food industry limiting the possible sizes and shapes of containers (such as glass) making them easier to wash and reuse as-is. On the home front, for example, it's ridiculous that I have to go out and purchase brand-new Mason jars for canning instead of being able to reuse a store-bought salsa jar. But more importantly on the commercially-processed food front, standardization would make reuse easier by ensuring that containers do not have to return all the way to their original company; that way a jar used by a raspberry jam company in the Pacific Northwest bought by a customer in Florida could go to a local orange marmalade company for reuse rather than having to travel all the way back to the PNW.
I think should also start seeing a lot more compostable products. We're already getting there somewhat with paper replacing plastic in shipping, but more products need to be explicitly labeled as compostable, and more municipalities need dedicated compost pickup and processing facilities. It's insane that we've created a soil-to-landfill pipeline for nutrients.
The idea of a standardized container that is so sexy. Bonus points if it comes in a variety of sizes that perfectly scale and tesselate together.
Like the plastic containers you get from Chinese restaurants?
You can reuse jars, ideally you would buy new lids, though when my mother or grandmother would make jam they would reuse "good" lids and the jars would seal well - I found a 20 year old reused jar and lid still sealed
Good lids being those where the seal is in good condition
There are very few lid sizes and threads
Obviously I reuse my canning jars, but I still had to go out and purchase my starting stock. At $1.25 a jar it's not a cheap endeavor to get into.
Only someone desperate or lucky would take city compost.
The chemicals that might have been sprayed on them can carry through even a good hot compost and affect your plants.
Then again I also don’t trust commercial compost for the same reason.
I have heard too many stories about losing a whole garden.
Agreed, there's a lot of issues with municipal compost currently. Ensuring cleaner compost output is important for making sure the end product is usable especially for edible crops, but in the meanwhile my understanding is food waste etc produces fewer greenhouse gasses when allowed to decompose via compost rather than in a landfill. Plus using municipal compost has to be better than the farms that are contaminating the soil with PFAS-laden biosolid fertilizer.
I should probably say I make my own because of those fears
I live dangerously- I make yogurt in old jam jars!
...Though you only need to go to 180° and don't need pressurization for it.But I absolutely echo you with that, the fact that you can't use most glass for this is insane.
And I only use the Baba Maman jars, they're the only ones resilient enough.
Composting releases carbon. Turns out that landfills successfully sequester carbon rather effectively.
That statement is naturally only true if you don't think about it too much -
- Landfills emit methane which is far worse than simple CO2
- The use of compost replaces other sources of carbon which may be coming from fossil sources
Composting releases the same methane that landfills do.
Landfills emit methane when they are filled with biodegradable trash. Parent comment is talking about increasing the volume of biodegradable trash.
Landfills filled with non-biodegradable trash do not emit methane.
I've got nothing against composting in general, but it should not be thought of as either a carbon neutral process or as a solution to trash. It is a solution only to biomass that cannot be readily sequestered from the biosphere.
Composting releases the same methane that landfills do.
I don't think this is correct - methane is produced in anaerobic decomposition, while aerobic decomposition will release CO2.
I've got nothing against composting in general, but it should not be thought of as either a carbon neutral process or as a solution to trash. It is a solution only to biomass that cannot be readily sequestered from the biosphere.
I'd agree that it's a harm reduction strategy, but food production will always have some amount of biomass involved that needs to be taken care of - composting is a beneficial strategy for making good use of this biomass.