Food packaging for a better future

When Sustainable Development is talk of the town, do you think that we would be using the same plastic we are using today ten years from now?

If the answer to this question is No, then how will food packaging look like in the future?

Well answer to this question can be explained after discussing three W’s:

• 1.       Why
• 2.       What
• 3.       When

Let’s dive deep into the topic to understand these three W’s better.

Why do we need to change Current Food Packaging Processes?

Right from chocolate bar wrappers to the milk pouches everything is made of Plastic. Owing to its reliability and durability, plastic can be seen used by almost everyone and for everything. Though you may find some metal and wooden boxes being used as large containers yet it’s primarily plastic.

Plastic took over the packaging industry effectively in the '80s and '90s. Today, with more varieties of plastics available, you can find them holding just about everything.

In food packaging plastic can be seen right from resealable snack containers to fish and seafood packaging. You can find plastic containers everywhere around you. But if you’ll study more, you’ll find out that the vast majority of food packaging is made of single-use plastic.

After you eat the packaged food, you probably throw away the packet as it’s of no use to you now. Most food packages today are cheap and disposable, which is quite budget-friendly but gives rise to certain alarming issues. We then pay a huge price for this cheap single-use food packaging plastic.

After one is done with the item, he immediately throws the food packet away. This leads to piles of waste especially plastic food packets which are later dumped in open. Huge landfills in urban suburbs are a great example of it.

You're already aware of how non-biodegradable plastic is. But what you don’t know is the grievance of the issue. Just one plastic bottle takes 450 years to decompose and now calculate how many we must have dumped by now into the environment.

It’s not like the food packaging industry is the sole source of plastic pollution, it is but a substantial one. Analyse by the fact that food packaging is the second most type of waste in beach clean-up operations. If food containers are just 10% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean, that's still one million tons of waste.

These hazardous alarms are now pushing towards sustainability. They are now becoming aware and concerned about ENVIRONMENT, which in turn means they are looking for sustainable food packaging processes and systems. As a result, the food packaging industry is seeing a shift in the preferences of its consumers.

As per a 2019 survey, 64% of US and UK consumers stated that recyclable food packaging was a priority for them. Nearly 50% of them also liked reusable food packaging, and 39% of them also mentioned biodegradable packages.

We can now draw an inference that the food packaging industry needs to pursue sustainability for two main reasons. First, and most importantly, sustainable packaging will help lessen the industry's less-than-ideal environmental impact. Second, introducing more sustainable packaging options will appeal more to customers.

What changes will be made?

From the above argument it is clear that the need for sustainable food packaging has already started inspiring change in the food packaging industry. Though single-use plastics still dominate the market, yet their consumption has declined. Various companies are beginning to take different measures to improve the sustainability of their food packaging.

By eco-friendly packaging, we can easily infer usage of biodegradable or recyclable materials. This approach is really obvious and is the most popular too. After all, completely replacing plastic food packaging will definitely reduce the amount of plastic waste a food packaging company produces.

Eco-Products — a green food packaging manufacturer — recently introduced a compostable tray for meats and produce. While most traditional trays are either plastic or Styrofoam, Eco-Products makes these out of sugarcane. They're microwavable, resilient and, most importantly, biodegradable.

Talking of recycled material, it’s more sustainable and economical than any other methods. Instead of having to buy new materials, manufacturers only have to cover the cost of recycling the old ones.

Another benefit of recycled food packaging is that it comes with no noticeable major changes for the consumer. You probably won't be able to differentiate between a recycled plastic container and a brand-new one. Consumers can keep using packages their familiar packets with lesser environmental impacts.

And the last approach is to use less packaging, the simplest, economical and the most doable. With less plastic in each container, the environmental cost of each piece of trash isn't as substantial.

When is the change in Food Packaging System likely to happen?

Changes in the food packaging industry have already been started and it can be seen with the introduction of bioplastics etc. Already 93% of food packaging big giants have been spending more time on environmental issues than in past years. It is evident from recycled or biodegradable food packaging that can be seen in the retails outlet today, in spite of the presence of plastic.

But predicting the future is still unlikely as so many factors come into play. The future of food packaging a decade down the line remains unwritten, and it will be a story that the entire industry creates together. But what can be done today is that we need to work together for a bright future for sustainable food packaging.

 

A Better Future!

The three W’s discussed above have clearly made us understand by now that what’s the Food Packaging for a Better Future and that it goes through the world-famous 3 R’s Reduce, Reuse and  Recycle.