What Do We Use Plastic For

There are other skilful reasons we have started relying more and more on plastic packaging.

We need plastics. What we don't need is plastic waste

(photograph: Wikimedia Commons)

The Earth Economic Forum predicts that by 2050 plastic waste matter in the oceans will outweigh the fish. This is a huge problem for marine life as a myriad of animals either get tangled upwardly in plastic waste or else mistake information technology for food and ingest it.

Fortunately, more than and more people are waking up to the consequence. Since a lot of this plastic waste material comes from food packaging, many people are doing their all-time to limit their use of it. While that intention is admirable, nosotros may demand to look at the issue from another perspective.

People tend to think that many companies take shifted to using more than plastic packaging just because it'south cheaper. Information technology is cheaper, only at that place are other adept reasons nosotros have started relying more and more on plastic packaging. Plastic is durable and provides protection from contaminants and the elements. It reduces food waste material by preserving nutrient and increasing its shelf life. It protects nutrient against pests, microbes and humidity.

Without this protection, food is more probable to go damaged and become unusable. Since food waste matter contributes to climatic change, water and free energy consumption, deforestation and biodiversity loss, every endeavour we make to mitigate those effects makes a big difference, and plastic packaging helps make that possible.

In improver, plastic tin hands exist made thin and lightweight, which lowers emissions, since information technology doesn't appreciably add volume or mass to transport. In other words, the overall environmental impact of plastic is lower than that of culling materials, similar bulky cardboard and weighty metal. Since plastic can be designed to be durable without becoming heavy, you don't accept to transport a lot of extra mass and volume. That means you lot tin reduce fuel consumption, which saves money and lowers emissions that are harmful to the environment.

In 2017, Denkstatt, a sustainability consultancy, published a study called "How Packaging Contributes to Nutrient Waste matter Prevention." According to its findings, "Fifty-fifty if improved packaging solutions contribute to increased CO2 emissions, the CO2 savings from reduced food waste are in most cases much higher." The report assumed that none of the packaging would exist recycled, only if information technology were, then the carbon dioxide reduction would be even greater.

What are the sources of marine plastic pollution and how can we reduce them?

Plastic enters the ocean via many different routes. Proper disposal of plastic items (especially recycling, when possible) is clearly the key to keeping it out of the sea. Although consumers in industrialized countries produce the most plastic waste, developing countries are the source of virtually of the plastic waste product that ends upwards in the oceans. The best fashion to help the environment is to improve recycling and waste management throughout the globe, particularly in countries where existing infrastructure is lacking.

Overall, plastic packaging is a meliorate culling for the environment than glass, metal or other packaging alternatives, but even so, some systems are improve than others. In an attempt to create the most environmentally friendly packaging solution, Swedish inventor Rickard Gillblad invented the Torus Pak. This patented packaging system was designed to reduce food waste by enabling mass produced, pre-portioned frozen ready meals to be packaged in such a mode that doesn't prevent a plated meal presentation.

By now, many people know that frozen meals radically reduce food waste by increasing shelf life and limiting plate waste product through pre-portioning. Since the Torus Pak is designed to have the film removed from underneath the meal and the bundle lifted away, there is no demand to eat out of the container or scrape the repast out.

In an effort to select the material with the to the lowest degree environmental impact, the Torus Pak engineering team evaluated different options for the optimum plastic polymer to employ in their packaging system. In a report of 12 different polymers, polypropylene ranked #one in life cycle analysis, which is a tool to compare the environmental affect of packaging production, use and disposal. Thus polypropylene was selected for the Torus Pak.

In an age where threats to the environment are widespread, it is of import for individuals and industries akin to brand an effort to minimize the negative ecology impacts of their activities. Plastic food packaging reduces food waste material and lowers carbon emissions, both of which contribute to a reduction in global warming. The key is to create packaging that more environmentally friendly and and then dispose of that packaging in environmentally friendly manners.