I’ve been thinking about this especially as tariffs are set to make non-plastic even more expensive, and we’re going to see EVEN MORE products that traditionally were glass/aluminum become plastic…Not just from an ‘ecowarrior’ thing but micro/nanoplastic pollution, what are your tips to avoid plastic packages as it seems increasingly the ‘only’ option for so many products now… even 75% of veggies at my local super are plastic wrapped with no alternative!!! Yes, I use the bulk section… what other tips/hacks do you have, if any?
You’re doing great already. At a macro level, the battle is all but lost. A third of a billion tons of plastic is produced every year. Almost nobody cares outside a smallish fringe of society in very developed countries (i.e. us). And the hydrocarbons industry needs new things to do with the oil it can’t burn. Also, plastic recycling is a red herring: it takes less energy to use virgin petroleum.
The two priorities IMO should be:
- Keep it out of waterways as much as possible. Above all this will mean education and resources in the developing world. In rich countries with waste management, the hard-to-fix issue is microplastics from synthetic clothes
- Minimize the health risks
For the second one, my basic principles are:
- Never eat or drink from plastic receptacles to which heat has been applied
- Avoid the rest where possible but don’t stress about it
Microplastics are going to be a major environmental and health challenge because the problem is just so intractable. But there’s only so much an individual can do. Be a good consumer, be a good citizen and at the very least never forget to vote, and then just relax. It’s bad enough as it is without adding pointless anxiety to it.
You seem to know this, I’ve heard that bottled water is the biggest culprit, responsible for like 90% of microplastic intake. Does the same go for other drinks in plastic bottles, like soda and juice?
The type of liquid should not make much difference. It’s basically inescapable. At this point there’s not much left to do except cross fingers.
Or drink tap water, which has far less of it and is obviously much better for the environment. To lose excess chlorine, just let the water stand overnight.
BUT POINTLESS ANXIETY IS WHAT I’M BEST AT. lol seriously though, thanks. Good perspective.
Recycling is not a red herring. Yes it uses more energy. Energy consumption is not the important metric. It uses fewer fossil fuels.
Energy consumption is the important metric because it almost certainly involves pollution. The supply of petroleum is essentially inexhaustible, certainly for the purpose of making plastic.
Then why reduce plastic use, if not to reduce oil consumption?
To reduce plastic pollution, of course.
Then energy consumption is again not the important metric. The amount of existing plastic is.
Going round in circles here.
It costs less, takes less energy, and therefore creates less climate-heating CO2 pollution, to make plastic out of virgin petroleum than it does to create plastic out of plastic. That should not be surprising: a thermoplastic is just petroleum with the molecules fixed into hard-to-break bonds. Of course it’s going to be more efficient to start with the raw product.
We all agree that we should be using less plastic. But assuming an equal amount of plastic usage, and assuming that waste plastic is kept out of waterways in sealed landfills (plastic does not biodegrade so it will not produce methane), then it makes more sense from an environmental perspective to simply use virgin plastic.
Maybe that’s uncomfortable but it’s true. Plastic recycling is a mirage: it serves mainly to make consumers feel better about themselves. The closed loop just makes no sense due to the energy problem. That is not the case with glass, paper and especially aluminum, all of which are very efficiently recycled.
Read this. I’ve said enough here.
PS: added emphasis
Oh, sure, if you assume used plastic is tightly and cleanly tucked away after use then creating new plastic doesn’t create more plastic, and energy becomes important.
But if we can’t get recycling right, why do you think we would get storage right? In fact, there are plenty of stories that show we don’t get storage right.
Recycling keeps the plastic out of the waste stream which otherwise just ends up in the environment.
You do a Kaczynski
I have a garden and i buy from local grocer and put produce in my own mesh bags instead of plastic. Buy meat from the butcher part of the grocer and its wrapped in paper. You should stop going to supers if they only give produce already wrapped in plastic
Our area is covered in ice/snow for much of the year, so my garden doesn’t help us too much with supplements. Our local coop is great and has pastic-free produce, but costs sometimes as much as 2-3x more than the chain store!! I wish we could get everything there, but it’s further and further out of reach with each price hike. I would ‘stop going’ entirely to the chain super with plastic wrapped veggies if we could afford it. The butcher is a great point - we don’t eat much meat, but when we do I can start buying it direct from the counter for paper-wrapping.
One thing you could try is a greenhouse in your yard if you have one / if you get enough sun. My friend made one out of a lot of windows and lumber got for free on craigslist.
Another just bought a kit online and put it together
Ultimately you vote w your dollar and buying stuff with excess packaging just makes them buy more of it from their suppliers and think it’s popular. I have the socal sun providing lots of veggies that i dont have to buy much so paying a bit higher when i do is less noticeable but living here is too expensive in general and not sure how much longer ill stay
We’re not eco-warrior or anything like that but we
- Buy in bulk and buy fresh.
We buy all we can in bulk, including rice and noodles, meat and fish and, obviously, fresh fruits and vegetables. I can’t recall the last time we purchased wrapped vegetables or fruits. Coffee, tea, spices, herbs,… all purchased in bulk and put in paper wrapping before being stored long term in metal or glass ones. - We also favor shops that are eco-friendly that
- will sell as much locally produced food (less shipping);
- won’t overwrap stuff and
- that are not afraid to sell fruits that don’t look perfect (they taste as good) and are not drowned into pesticides.
- As much as possible, we shop local (walking distance or using public transportation) and bring our own bag(s).
- We do as little delivery as we can, that includes not using Uber much—we have used it a single time since it has been available and I doubt we will ever use it again.
- We never buy ready-made/industrially processed food, nor pre-packaged sweets. We cook ourselves. Any pastry/sweet we eat will be fresh from our local artisan baker, his the bread (he make them all by hand). Or we prepare them ourselves (my spouse does the pastries, as if I like cooking a lot I have zero patience for pastries).
- My spouse is also kinda nerdy, she has calculated that we could save a little plastic (really not much but still) by purchasing 5L bottles instead of the standard 1L5 ones. And other little changes like that.
- We quit drinking soda. That was a lot of plastic less in our life, and a lot less of shit in our body too.
- We buy our better in semi-paper wrapper (pretty sure those are not eco-friendly) and we store it longer-term in one of those china/porcelain butter cup holder thingy.
The only thing we have yet to find alternatives to are yogurts and, how do you call that in English: fresh cheese? Fromage blanc, in French. Those are almost always sold in plastic containers.
This is a good list, many things we already do…and some things I can try…first, I’m jealous of your local baker. If I want non-processed, non-plastic wrapped bread I have to make it myself. I love doing it but don’t always have time and my kids wont eat it, b/c sadly they’re conditioned on the soft, preservative filled industrial bread. We don’t drink soda and we cook 90% of meals, but as you mention, some products are inescapable… Including products we use for cooking… one pet peeve of mine: mayonnaise used to be glass now there is no glass option, same for a lot of oils (more than 80% of the olive oil is now in plastic, and what’s not is more expensive, same for vinegar). So even our ingredients… hell even the SPICES now come in plastic instead of glass jars. I can’t find glass/aluminum apple sauce for my kids to save my life. For us, there isn’t a lot of Fromage Blanc in the states where I live, but I found our most similar product (Cream Cheese) in blocks, still made of foil and cardboard like they always have for baking which is nice.
This is a good list, many things we already do…and some things I can try…first, I’m jealous of your local baker.
One of the advantage of living in Paris is that, among (too) many industrial bakeries, we still have quite a few real bakeries (and restaurants) and I would add ours is real talented—it’s rare people don’t queue—willing to bet your kids would love it ;)
and my kids wont eat it, b/c sadly they’re conditioned on the soft, preservative filled industrial bread.
Yes, that’s a real issue. I was already impacted as a kid, but not to the level it has reached in those last decades. Our kids are becoming overweight younger and younger. It’s frightening and, imho, if our species doesn’t vanish in a poof of smoke because of its own stupidity/rapacity, I’m afraid overprocessed food will be as detrimental to younger generations health as the cigarette was to my and my parents generations, as well as it was to older generations. Maybe even worse. Maybe not as dramatic as their phone addiction could be for them, that I can’t tell.
and what’s not is more expensive
It is here too. We had to change our habits and reduce our spending on quite a few things.
So even our ingredients… hell even the SPICES now come in plastic instead of glass jars
Maybe there is still a place that sells them in glass jars or in bulk, alas I think it’s become very difficult to be certain of that because, what not a surprise, small local business are seldom efficiently promoted by search engines instead they will put forward shit on amazon and the likes.
Like you, we’re trying our best but I’m pretty sure things won’t get better any time soon and our options will dwindle down. Even more so now that the EU and America are not BFF any longer (and that the rest of the world hates us) and now that our undoubtedly incredibly extremely smart leaders are competing to decide who has the biggest… tariffs—you’re richer than we are and you have Walt Disney, so you obviously and easily win there but here in the EU we have the good old Parthenon and those unique French cheese so we win here and by a landslide if I dare say so myself because, obviously, our cheese are so yummy (and not plastic wrapped). Could we now be BFF again and stop that craziness? ;)
More seriously, thx for starting the thread. It’s an interesting discussion. I hope others will share their ideas too.
On spices - you’re right, I buy lots of stuff from bulk but I’ve been neglecting the spice section! I usually get the dry goods & snacks there… But yeah, you’re right it’s not getting any better. For what it’s worth - most of us in the US are just as horrified, I think… maybe I just live in a bubble, but uh, yeah, we’re aware that our country is collapsing in front of the world in real time and it’s embarrassing to say the least, horrifying more like. If only we hadn’t let all our absurd wealthy corpos & oligarchs loot and pillage our government… I’m grateful for lemmy where we can still chat as friends without algorithms, bots & ads! Cheers!
but uh, yeah, we’re aware that our country is collapsing in front of the world in real time and it’s embarrassing to say the least, horrifying more like.
I’ve a huge confidence in the USA, even sick to the chore by illiteracy and by raging money-grabbing-rapacity—because it’s not just capitalism anymore talking, it’s something rabid and uncontrollable and so intoxicated, that doesn’t rely on hard work anymore. Something without a name that you now seem to have turned against yourself, and against your allies. That should worry everyone, as should the unbelievable wave of proud idiotism (if it wasn’t, it’s now officially a word) that’s also going on in the USA. Still, I refuse to doubt the USA have completely lost it.
That said, for the time being it doesn’t look pretty at all to witness the most powerful of ‘us’ happily re-elect such an illiterate racist buffoon (also the instigator of a failed coup); while at the same time watching him spit in the face of most if not all of its allies (doesn’t matter much if that was deserved or not); while lowering his pants in front of its enemies; while the whole country looks like its slipping into a state of quasi civil war; while a few persons of power are quickly dismantling/gutting all safeguards that were supposed to prevent any grab of power; while more and more of its population start acting like a mob of proud illiterate and ultra violent absolute idiots. Don’t get me wrong, we have our own fair share of shit going on around here, its just that the USA was supposed to be the leader and role model.
Well, all that combined is not reassuring and will not help appease those unfriendly feelings expressed by so many other countries around the world. Most of them also having started to imagine a future without us, that would instead orbit around Russia and China (and India?) I imagine.
Pessimistic me thinks that, whatever is bound to happen, it likely wont be pretty.
Less pessimistic me also don’t worry too much about the issue. We’ve already been trough some real hardship in the approx. 2000 years the ‘West’ has been a thing. But there is that little detail: we are in a unprecedented situation where we (not just you the USA, most of us) are insisting on electing the more incompetent people (and the stupidest ones) to deal with whatever major crisis is bound to happen, while seeking refuge and solace behind the most stupid and naive ideas being so sure we can’t be wrong ever because yeah, it’s us! Meanwhile, other countries seem to do the exact opposite kind of choice… and we can mock them all we want and say they’re retrogrades, clueless, or whatever so far I would say they’re not the ones demonstrating they’re clueless, quite the contrary. And that could cost us dear.
Sorry for the rant. Sadness of an old grumpy dude talking, nothing more obviously.
- Buy in bulk and buy fresh.
