5 ways to reduce the negative impact of food packaging on the environment?
March 13th, 2010 | 
Author: I m doing a science project, and i need to think of 5 ways to reduce the negative impact of food packagin on the environment. I already have two, use reusable bags at the supermarket, and simply recycling, but i cant think of anything else. HELP?
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1. – use cloth re-usable produce bags when buying fruits and vegetables. I’ve seen them for sale at farmers markets and craft shows made from a washable translucent fabric and has a drawstring, or you could make your own if you sew.
2. I buy my deli meats like ham etc. at the deli counter and they wrap it in paper instead of plastic, Paper bio-degrades much better than plastic and if it is clean, it can be put with the mixed paper recycling
3. Also when you buy meat at the butcher shop, it is wrapped in paper instead of those styrofoam trays and plastic wrap, also keep requesting this at your grocery store. The styrofoam trays cannot be recycled.
4. buying larger quantities helps, for instance a large bag of pasta uses less packaging than 5 small bags of pasta
5. buy from the bulk bins and use your own bags (see #1) For things like nuts, beans, sugar, pasta etc.
Raise your own garden and livestock. That’s 1
What you have to do is invent a better package that uses less material than the old packaging. Having worked in packaging I feel quite certain that you would make money with it because saving a penny on each package translates to big bucks for the manufacturer. The only exception is where it is the package, not the contents, that sells the product, as with some candy assortments.
Eat the packaging.
Recycle them as guns and bullets so gunowners can accidentally shoot themselves and reduce the number of people who pollute.
Support abortion, so we won’t have more people on earth than we actually need.
Eat healthy food like vegetables and fruit, that don’t need special packaging like meat.
You can buy dried beans instead of canned & fresh fruit instead of dried or canned. I use my own containers to store them – and there’s zero waste.
Some grocery stores honor refillable water jugs vs. buying bottles. This alone is one of the highest profit, highest waste products in grocery stores. (just don’t buy bottled water – invest in a purifier)
Plant a garden. The not only reduces in packaging, but it helps the soil.
Buy in Bulk when possible to reduce on multiple, smaller packages.
I shop with cloth bags sold in large supermarkets like Tesco & Sainsbury.
Buy in bulk so that the plastic bag wrappings can be used for small bins around the house that I make myself out of cardboard packaging.
As a result, I do not need to buy big bin liners. The occasional plastic bag I still accumulate are used for bin disposal in the weekly collection.
I rarely buy products with loads of wrapping because the costly wrapping bumps up the price of the goods, therefore not value for money.