Plastic packaging? – Why do we need plastic packaging? - Arhive

Packaging is essential to modern life as it protects and preserves items, prevents contamination, provides information about contents, and helps in transport and storage.

Packaging is especially useful to protect and preserve the contents of the packaging​.

• Plastic packaging provides a durable, safe, hygienic, secure and light weight packaging medium.
• By packaging products, such as food and drink, we can ensure they reach the consumer in good condition and also preserve them for consumption at a later date. This provides flexibility for the consumer and prevents food waste.[1]
• In countries where packaging is less sophisticated, as much as 50% of food never reaches the consumer.[2]Plastic packaging
• The UK throws away 1.6 million bananas and 5 million potatoes every year.
• Putting bananas in a flexible bag extends shelf life by 2–3 days and prevents other nearby fruits from ripening too quickly.[3]
• Plastic bags reduce the wastage of potatoes from 3% to 1%.[4]
• Cucumbers have their life extended by 14 days when wrapped in film.[5]
• Replacing food that has spoiled uses over ten times more resources than packaging them correctly in the first place.[6]

Packaging prevents cross contamination of foods in the logistics chain.

Packaging allows a given quantity of a product to be provided.Plastic packaging

Packaging can provide valuable information to the consumer.Plastic packaging

• Packaging provides important information about correct storage and in some cases cooking instructions. It also provides a list of ingredients, allergies, dietary appropriateness (e.g. suitable for vegetarians) and calorific content.

2 What happens if we don’t use packaging?

Without packaging we could not purchase liquids, gels, powders or out-of-season fruit.[7]

Food safety and hygiene would become a significant problem.Plastic packaging

Food wastage would increase, which would have far greater negative environmental impacts:

‘Food waste has at least ten times the environmental impact of packaging waste and that’s before taking account of the impact of methane from decayed food.’ [8]
50% of the energy used to produce and get food to our plates is used in food production and processing Plastic packaging
30% is used by us to drive to the shops and store and cook food Plastic packaging
10% in transport to the shop and retailing Plastic packaging
10% to make the packaging[9]  — in the case of plastic packaging, this figure is even lower

Products sold loose have been found to suffer from greater in-store waste, in some cases leading to increases of 20%.

Damage and losses would occur to goods in the retail and logistics chain.

For more information on food wastage and how you can prevent it, please see Fresher for Longer and Love Food, Hate Waste 

3 There is too much packaging, isn’t there?

The amount of packaging we consume today also reflects the lifestyles we live.

There are regulations in place that require all packaging specifiers to reduce the amount of packaging used without compromising it’s functionality, see The Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/1640), which require that packaging is kept to the minimum volume and weight necessary for safety and hygiene.[10]

The Courtauld Commitment is an example of a voluntary industry agreement to work towards reducing packaging and waste[11]

4 Why do we use plastic packaging?

Plastic is safe, hygienic, secure, lightweight, versatile and durable. It also takes fewer resources to produce than alternatives — so without it, we would consume more of the planet’s resources for both production and transportation. Plastic packaging

Plastic is also shatter resistant and is therefore safe to use and due to its flexibility it can be used for pastes and ketchup.Plastic packaging

If we didn’t have plastic packaging, food would spoil quickly. Plastic provides a particularly versatile, safe, hygienic, secure, lightweight and durable packaging medium that uses fewer resources than alternatives. [12]

By using flexible packaging, bananas can be stored for 2–3 more days.

Plastic bags reduce the wastage of potatoes from 3% to 1%.

Cucumbers have their life extended by 14 days when wrapped in film[13]

Studies have also shown that if there was no plastics packaging available and other materials were used, the overall packaging consumption of packaging mass, energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would increase dramatically. [14]

5  Do we need single-use packaging?

Yes. Single-use plastic packaging has an important part to play in modern life — especially where safety and hygiene is concerned. Plastic packaging

For example, a plastic water bottle allows hygienic access to clean drinking water and is less resource intensive to produce than alternative materials.Plastic packaging

Single-use plastic packaging has also considerably reduced packaging weight in transit and in many cases has reduced the number of lorries needed to transport goods on our roads.

Other single-use items, such as plastic packaging of fruit and vegetables, provide hygienic ways to purchase food and reduce waste, which reduces overall resource consumption. Grapes sold in sealed trays rather than loose bunches typically have reduced waste in stores by over 20%.[15]

Also, we must not forget the important innovations plastic packaging has brought in keeping food fresh and reducing wastage in the home.Plastic packaging