How about new packaging that is easily compostable? or replace the whole carton and make it compostable. e.g. pre-packed apples .....
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I think that would be great. Above all, no more plastic, because plastic cannot be broken down in nature. And yet 200-240 million tons (we don't know exactly) of plastic are produced worldwide. Of this amount, packaging accounts for the largest share at 38%.
When you read about the North Pacific Gyre, a gigantic garbage vortex full of plastic with an estimated 3 million tons of plastic waste floating in the sea, it just makes you sick.
Guest
Hello everyone
Thank you for your messages. Migros is very interested in using the most ecological packaging material possible and is constantly working to improve.
I am happy to pass on your ideas - they show us that this issue is also important to our customers, that you are concerned about it and that you are encouraging us in our efforts.
Kind regards
Tanja
Guest
Hello everyone
As I have learned from our environmental officers, we have intensively examined the topic of compostable packaging in recent years and have also arranged for ecological tests and calculations to be carried out.
The results of these life cycle assessments have shown us that biodegradable plastics based on corn and sugar cane, for example, do not perform any better than conventional plastics, even though they are mostly made from renewable raw materials and are compostable.
As a life cycle assessment from 2014 shows, biodegradable and compostable bags have a significantly higher overall environmental impact than petroleum-based bags. The reasons for this lie in particular in cultivation (intensive agriculture, monocultures) and higher material consumption for the same load-bearing capacity. Composting the bag also has no environmental benefit (little material recovery and no nutrients for the soil).
Another problem is that biodegradable materials sometimes compete with food production. For example, bioplastics are made from corn, potato or soy starch, which is an important source of food for many people.
For the reasons mentioned above, the use of biodegradable packaging is not an option for us at the moment.
I hope you understand this.
Kind regards
Tanja
Thanks for the feedback. The basic problem is that it is plastic and therefore an artificially created product. Alternatives would probably be products that do not rely on plastic. All the problems with plastic also exist with plastics made from natural raw materials.
This means that the search should actually be for alternative packaging. However, the problem here is finding a "safe" product. As we have seen, cardboard is not ideal either, as petroleum is used for printing and is then recycled into cardboard, which means that the petroleum is also present there. Not so bad in itself, but apparently the petroleum from the cardboard also passes into the product, which means that we "eat" the petroleum as well.
It should probably be more in the direction of jute, cotton, hemp, bamboo or something like that. But I'm not a specialist.
However, I smiled a little at the argument that it competes with "food production". Smirked insofar as the main problem of this competition is caused by meat "production", but no one there is crying out for it. It is, however, mentioned in an argument against packaging. (Where it probably makes up a tiny proportion compared to meat "production").