More than 3,000 potentially harmful chemicals found in food packaging

By Alex Zhang

So, we all agree plastics are bad, right?

Plastics may be a villain in earth’s very own TV series, but without it, many inventions would not be possible today. Plastic has given us computers, solar panels, and even that iPhone you cannot live without.

However, traditional plastics are typically made from fossil fuels, and therefore contribute to the ongoing climate crisis. According to a UN Environment Program (UNEP) report, fossil fuel-based plastics alone account for an estimated 15 percent of the world’s carbon budget, equivalent to approximately 1.7 gigatons of CO2. Emissions from producing these harmful plastics are equivalent to 116 coal-fired power plants last year.

Fossil fuel-based plastic is also kind of immortal. These materials do not break down efficiently in the environment and end up sitting in landfills for hundreds and thousands of years; or they are burned with other trash, releasing toxic gas into the environment.

To make things more complicated, ‘greenwashing’ has become a troubling issue in recent years as companies attempt to use corn-based materials that they market as ‘compostable’. These corn-plastic products do not degrade as promised if they end up in forests or oceans.

Fossil fuel-based plastic is also kind of immortal. These materials do not break down efficiently in the environment and end up sitting in landfills for hundreds and thousands of years

However, there are startups trying to solve all of these problems by using innovative materials to make truly biodegradable products.

The Good News – Bioplastics

Unlike traditional plastic, bioplastics are typically made from renewable sources such as plants, starches, and sugars. One of the most advanced bioplastic materials is called PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates). It’s an excellent alternative to traditional fossil fuel-based plastic because it offers a completely compostable solution, biodegradable in all types of natural environments. Products made of PHA will completely decompose without any special treatment, which is crucial for preventing single-use plastic pollution.

For example, single-use straws made of traditional plastics can take up to 200 years to degrade on land or in the ocean. However, single-use straws made of PHA will degrade in just 90 days when buried in soil and 180 days in the ocean.

One of the most advanced bioplastic materials is called PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates). It’s an excellent alternative to traditional fossil fuel-based plastic because it offers a completely compostable solution, biodegradable in all types of natural environments.

What About Our Oceans?

Preventing traditional plastics from entering the ocean is crucial to the health of our planet. For many decades, plastic has been improperly disposed of by society, which has caused plastics to build up in the ocean at an alarming rate. An Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA) study says that plastic will outweigh fish in the planet’s oceans by 2050. Since traditional plastics are made of petrochemicals and designed to be durable, their products are not naturally biodegradable and often contain harmful toxins. Unless these materials are removed by humans, plastic that ends up in the ocean will remain there indefinitely. Traditional plastic products have also been found to break down into microplastic. Marine animals sometimes eat microplastics, which in turn endangers human food safety by ending up on our plates.

PHA has been found to be one of the only bioplastics that will properly and efficiently break down in the ocean. Products made of PHA are denser than water, which means PHA is more likely to sink compared to other plastics. The soil at the bottom of the ocean helps with the biodegradation process and allows for the PHA to decompose faster than if it were to be free-floating. According to studies, the rate of degradation depends on the surface area of the product. Smaller products, such as straws, take just six months to disappear.

PHA has been found to be one of the only bioplastics that will properly and efficiently break down in the ocean.

How is PHA Different from ‘Corn-Plastics’?

A more commonly recognized type of bioplastic is polylactic acid, or PLA, a material made from corn. Today, PLA (or corn-plastic) is made into single-use products such as straws, bottles, and other packaging materials. While PLA is technically considered ‘compostable’, products made of PLA need to be specially treated in industrial composting facilities in order to be properly biodegraded. This is because PLA needs to be heated to at least 140°F/60°C (a temperature that does not usually exist in nature) and fed special microbes to break the bioplastic back down into sugars.

Additionally, if PLA products are recycled, they must be separated as they will contaminate the recycling process. When tossed in the trash, PLA products can take 100 to 1000 years to completely degrade. Despite their marketing, this effectively makes PLA just as bad as traditional plastics.

Unlike PLA, PHA products do not need to be specially treated in order to break down. When PHA products are disposed, they will degrade in the natural environment.

Startups Pioneering Plastic Pollution Solutions

In recent years, a handful of startups have emerged to address the single-use plastic pollution problem. Companies like Full Cycle and Genecis focus on using food waste and agricultural byproducts to make PHA raw material. Refork developed a single-use fork by blending wood flour, PHA polymer, and minerals. Even more, OMAO leads in the development of naturally biodegradable tableware made from PHA. OMAO has replaced over 5,000 pounds of traditional plastics by offering PHA straws. The company is also working on other single-use tableware products in an effort to make sustainability even easier for everyone.

The plastic pollution problem looms, and it can often feel unaddressable because of its size and complexity. But it’s important to recognize that there are solutions out there for cleaning up our plastic use—and there are surely many more to come.

Alex Zhang (’22) is a Columbia Business School MBA candidate and the founder of OMAO. His background includes both founding an environmental tech startup and working as an investment professional.

Tefere Gebre’s biography has touched on the major crises affecting the planet: the massive rise in refugees, skyrocketing economic inequality and climate change. The first of those cataclysms was thrust upon him when he was just a teenager.  He fled the civil war in Ethiopia, enduring a perilous 2½ week journey through the desert. “Sometimes you’d find yourself where you were a week ago,” he told Orange Coast magazine in 2014. He spent five months in a refugee camp in Sudan before arriving in Los Angeles, where he attended high school.

As an adult, Gebre became active in the labor movement, organizing trash sorters in Anaheim and holding leadership positions at the Orange County Labor Federation and the AFL-CIO, where he served as executive vice president. In February, he took the position as chief program officer at Greenpeace USA, the 3 million-member direct action organization known for its high-profile banner drops, opposition to whale hunting and campaign against plastic waste. 

Capital & Main spoke to Gebre two days before Greenpeace held its first-ever protest in solidarity with fossil fuel workers. Two boats with activists from Greenpeace USA and United Steel Workers Local 5 members formed a picket line from land into San Francisco Bay as an oil tanker headed to Chevron’s Richmond refinery in what Gebre described as “a genuine attempt to build a transformational relationship” with the striking workers. Nearly 500 refinery employees went on strike over safety and salary concerns in March. The two sides have yet to come to an agreement. The oil tanker crossed the picket line, according to sources at Greenpeace.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tefere Gebre, center, with activists from Greenpeace USA and USW workers sailing in solidarity with striking workers from Chevron’s Richmond refinery on April 29. Photo: Nick Otto / Greenpeace.

Capital & Main: You’ve been a labor leader for most of your career. Can you talk about why you decided to make this move?

Tefere Gebre: In 2017, I had my first child, who’s now 5 years old, and she brought a lot of things into perspective for me. I’m worried sick that if things continue the way they are, I’m never going to see her graduate from high school or college. I just felt like she was going to hold me accountable.

I also know that the workers’ movement is going to be crucial in actually solving this problem. We have been fed wrong choices and wrong narratives for years. Either we have to take good paychecks, family-sustaining paychecks, or choose to breathe clean air. I don’t think that’s a choice.

Also, for ages, people like myself have imagined the environmental movement to be a movement for upper-middle-class white people. But I grew up in Los Angeles. I know the asthma corridor in Los Angeles — the 110 freeway which leads to the ports. Those are little Black and brown kids, who have nothing to do with polluting the environment. They are born with asthma. I want the environmental movement to actually be their movement, driven by them and led by them.

Is your appointment to this executive position at Greenpeace a sign that Greenpeace is moving in a new direction?

Absolutely. Eight years ago, 13% of Greenpeace’s staff was BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color]. Today, it’s 52%. It is by design. In a real way, they want to do equity and inclusiveness. I’m the first immigrant and Black man they ever had in a leadership position.
 

“We know, at the end of the day, those large corporations are going to try to profit from the new, cleaner energy sources. But they have no plan to transition fossil fuel workers into that sector.”

 
How are you going to build the partnership between labor and the environmental movement in your current role?

I’m going to talk directly to fossil fuel workers, those who work at the refineries, and those who work to actually take the oil out of the ground. I want them to actually imagine a better life for themselves, and explain that the environmental movement — at least Greenpeace — is not against them. We’re with them. We’re against the people who take advantage of them at work and would take advantage of their community, and pollute our environment.

The emerging, new, clean energy jobs are also going to be good jobs, and they are not going to be good jobs just because we wish them to be good. We have to work hard on [making them good].

To the environmental movement, I will bring the perspective that we don’t just fight for solar panels and wind. We also have to fight for those jobs becoming family-sustaining jobs and union jobs.

When I think of Greenpeace, I think of bold acts of civil disobedience, confronting oil tankers at sea and so forth. Labor unions are often interested in pocketbook issues that affect people’s daily lives. How do you bring these two movements together?

Some in the building trades specifically have had clashes with the environmental movement. For a long time, when I was in the labor movement, I used to say, “They are letting you fight their dirty fight.” We know, at the end of the day, those large corporations are going to try to profit from the new, cleaner energy sources. But they have no plan to transition fossil fuel workers into that sector. They just make them do their dirty fight [against environmental regulation].

They don’t have any conversation with their unions about how they’re going to transition into [clean technologies]. They just scare them about their current job, and say, “The environmentalists just don’t care about you,” and all that stuff. So it’s on us to prove them wrong, and be laser-focused on who the enemy is here. Not the workers. It’s the corporations.
 

“It’s a mystery to me how people are not really, really outraged that Exxon gets billions of dollars from the government for free.”

 
There’s obviously an incredible urgency to the climate crisis. And this work of building partnerships across constituencies takes time and patience, trial and error. Is there time to do the work that needs to be done in that area?

We have to do this as quickly as possible. We believe that we are in a climate emergency right now. The thing is, how do we get our government to respond to that emergency? Our government was willing to print all kinds of money because of a pandemic … Now, just imagine, if our government actually puts a trillion dollars onsite for incumbent fossil fuel workers and says, “Go innovate your future job, and help us build clean energy.” What would happen?

But the thing is, including in California, most politicians are in the pocket of the fossil fuel economy. People think the fossil fuel industry is just polluting our air. They’re polluting our democracy. They’re polluting our politics … In California, we practically have a Chevron caucus in the Legislature.

Clearly, they have a lot of power and resources. Do you think that explains it? 

The lack of investment [in clean energy alternatives] is a problem. I have met with people who believe they have the technology to make dissolvable plastics, for example. You can have your Safeway plastic bag and put it in the water. It will stay there for a million years. They have plant-based plastics that can dissolve.

I ask them, “How can we get this to market?” Their answer to me was that they can’t compete with the fossil fuel industry, about 45% of which is plastics. That’s what they use fossil fuels for.

You can’t do both. You can’t be feeding something you’re trying to kill. It’s a mystery to me how people are not really, really outraged that Exxon gets billions of dollars from the government for free.

Here’s the core of it. There ain’t going to be any jobs on a dead planet. And I think the more workers understand that the more they are willing actually to look at the longer view of this.

That’s a pretty stark phrase. And getting people to believe that the government can and will do enough to avoid the worst impacts seems to be one of the key challenges.

In a democracy, people are the government. They can make the government do it. That’s why we need to activate and actually demand. When voters demand things, they get what they want.

 
Copyright 2022 Capital & Main

Every day, hundreds of millions of single-use containers, cans, trays, and cutlery are thrown away around the world. While packaging is an essential component of the food sector and the only solution we have to facilitate food transportation, food packaging waste is also one of the most harmful aspects of this industry. We outline the advantages and disadvantages of the most popular materials used to wrap groceries and takeaway foods and explore innovative sustainable food packaging that could revolutionise the market and protect the environment. 

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Why Do We Use So Much Food Packaging?

In ancient history, humans used to consume food from where it was found. There were no grocery shops, takeaway and delivery services, and almost no imports and exports of food on a global scale. But things changed rapidly in the 20th century. Suddenly, countries began shipping produce from one end of the world to the other; supermarkets in the US started selling Southeast Asian tropical fruits; China depended on Brazil for its soybean supplies; and European countries were importing coffee from Africa. The emergence and subsequent surge in international shipping of food staples led to a revolution in the packaging sector.

Since food needed to travel long distances to keep up with global demand, it became crucial to find ways to ensure food remained fresh and undamaged at the time of consumption. Packaging turned out to be the best way to extend food shelf-life as it retarded product deterioration, retained the beneficial effects, and maintained the nutritional values, characteristics, and appearance of foods for longer times. 

Materials that have been traditionally used in food packaging include glass, metals (aluminium, foils and laminates, tinplate, and tin-free steel), paper, and paperboards. Plastic, by far the most common material used in food packaging today, is also the newest option. Since the plastic boom in the early 1980s, new varieties of this material have been introduced in both rigid and flexible forms, slowly replacing traditional materials due to their versatility, easy manufacturing process, and cheap price. Of all plastics produced worldwide today, nearly 40% are used for food and drink packaging. 

Figure 1: Worldwide Plastic Production, 1950-2015

But food retailers are not the only industry that contributed to the rapid acceleration in plastic and packaging production. Consumer habits changed drastically within the restaurant industry too. The first takeaway options were already available in the 1920s, but it was not until after World War II that consumers started appreciating the convenience of drive-throughs and other take-home options. In America, fast food chains such as In-N-Out Burger and McDonald’s were responsible for the industry’s boom and with the expansion of the transportation industry, delivery options also began expanding around the world. This inevitably led to a massive influx of food packaging solutions that allowed consumers to pick up pre-cooked dishes and consume them elsewhere.

Most of the containers that we have today are single-use, non-compostable, and difficult to degrade because of food contamination. Both the restaurant and retail industries are major contributors of food packaging waste. Finding a balance between food protection and environmental consciousness undoubtedly requires huge efforts. Given the increasing consumer (and manufacturer) awareness of the environmental and health impacts of non-degradable packaging, in recent years the packaging industry has been seriously looking at alternative, more environmentally friendly materials as well as ways to reduce packaging where it is not absolutely necessary. Restaurants, in particular, have seen sustainable packaging options widely expanded to include compostable and recyclable packaging. According to Globe News Wire, the biodegradable packaging market will reach a value of USD$126.85 billion by 2026. 

Where Does All the Food Packaging Waste Come From?

Single-use packaging is taking a huge toll on our environment. Almost all food containers we see in grocery stores – typically made of glass, metal, plastic, or paperboard – cannot be reused for their original function, such in the case of aluminium cans and most plastic bags. However, food contamination is a big consideration. Though some types of packaging might be suitable to be reused, some experts have raised hygiene concerns in replacing single-use food service ware with reusable items, both within the food retail and the restaurant industries.

Another big hurdle that companies studying sustainable food packaging alternatives are trying to solve is over-packaging. Nowadays, food retailers tend to encase products in multiple layers. More often than not, food items such as fruit and vegetables are placed on a tray, wrapped in paper or plastic, and then placed into a paperboard box. On top of that, consumers might opt for a plastic bag to carry groceries home, adding to the already huge pile of waste generated from a single trip to the supermarket. Additionally, conventional materials are still extremely widespread worldwide despite a multitude of new sustainable alternatives entering the market every year. A 2021 survey found that over 80% of food packaging examined is not suitable for recycling. 

Detail-oriented societies such as Japan – where quality, presentation, and customer satisfaction are particularly valued – are among the biggest culprits in terms of unnecessary packaging and waste generation. The United States alone produces an estimated 42 million metric tons of plastic waste each year – more than any other country in the world. Most of it occurs in grocery shops. A Greenpeace UK report found that every year, seven of the country’s top supermarkets are responsible for generating almost 60 billion pieces of plastic packaging – a staggering 2,000 pieces for each household. And in the European Union, the estimated packaging waste per capita in 2019 was 178.1 kilogrammes (392 pounds), with paper and cardboard making up the bulk of it, followed by plastic and glass. 

Figure 2: Plastic Packaging Waste in the European Union, 2009-2019

While grocery stores are a major contributor to food packaging waste, the bulk of it is actually made up of waste from meals to go and restaurant delivery services. The takeaway industry is notorious for generating huge amounts of unnecessary waste. Eateries often wrap their food in aluminium or plastic foil or opt for Styrofoam containers, while beverages often come in their own carrier bags. In addition, most takeaway food comes with plastic cutlery, napkins, and straws. All these single-use plastics and packaging make up nearly half of the ocean plastic, a 2021 study found.

Figure 3: Top 10 Types of Plastic Litter in the Ocean, 2021

Several experts also point out that packaging waste from disposable takeaway containers and cutlery skyrocketed during the Covid-19 pandemic, as restaurants stepped up delivery services during the long months of lockdowns imposed around the world. In Hong Kong – a city with a population of nearly 7.5 million people – the pandemic outbreak in 2020 fuelled the use of more than 100 million disposal plastic items per week as food orders surged 55% compared to 2019 figures. In the US, plastic waste increased by 30% during the pandemic. This extensive increase in plastic consumption has resulted in an estimated 8.4 million tonnes of plastic waste generated from 193 countries since the start of the pandemic, 25,900 tonnes of which – equivalent to more than 2,000 double-decker buses – have leaked into the ocean, according to recent research. 

What’s more, the issue with food packaging does not stop with waste generation. To produce plastic food packaging and drink bottles, gases need to be fracked from the ground, transported, and processed industrially, contributing millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions. A large portion of which is methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

You might also like: Rethinking Sustainable Packaging and Innovation in the Beverage Industry

Comparing Conventional Food Packaging Materials

As we have mentioned before, plastic is by far the most popular food packaging material and yet aluminium, glass, and paper are still widely used. But why is there such a big variety and how do these types of packaging compare to each other?

Plastics

Plastic is not only the most inexpensive and lightweight packaging material on the market, but because of its chemical composition, it can also easily be shaped into different forms and thus accommodate a huge range of food items. While some types of plastic packaging can be reused, styrofoam-like containers – mostly used in restaurants for takeaways and deliveries – are often impossible to recycle because of food contamination. Furthermore, most plastic items are designed for single-use, which makes this material even more problematic.

Furthermore, its production contributes high quantities of pollutants to the environment. For every kilogramme of fossil-based plastic produced, there are between 1.7 and 3.5 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Plastic production utilises 4% of the world’s total fossil fuel supply, further emitting planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Glass 

Glass guarantees protection and insulation for food items from moisture and gases, keeping the product’s strength, aroma, and flavour unchanged. It is also relatively cheap and easily reusable. However, the fact that it is easily breakable, heavy and bulky, and thus costlier to transport, makes it a less favourable alternative to plastics.  

Glass containers used in food packaging are often surface-coated to provide lubrication in the production line and eliminate scratching or surface abrasion and line jams. While the coating increases and preserves the strength of the bottle, fossil fuels that drive this process as well as evaporation from the glass itself release polluting particles and CO2 gases into the atmosphere.

Aluminium

Aluminium is a great impermeable and lightweight packaging material, yet it is more expensive, requires hundreds of years to break down in landfills, and is more challenging to recycle than other alternatives because of the chemical processes it undergoes to be laminated, which make material separation an intricate operation. 

Aluminium is commonly used to make cans and bags of crisps as well as takeaway items such as trays, plates, and foil paper, but various nonrenewable resources are required to create the material. Its production is the result of mined bauxite that is smelted into alumina through an extremely energy-intensive process that also requires huge amounts of water. Emissions deriving from aluminium production include greenhouse gases, sulfur dioxide, dust, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and wastewater. 

Paper and Paperboard

Despite no longer being the most popular food packaging materials, paper and paperboard are still widespread mainly because of their low cost. However, while there are some great reusable and often biodegradable packaging options, paper containers are nearly impossible to recycle when used to wrap food items. Not only because they lose strength from food condensation, it is also less safe to do so due to food contamination.

Surprisingly, paper requires even more energy to produce than plastic, sometimes up to three times higher. It takes approximately 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce 200kg of paper, the average amount of paper that each of us consumes each year. That is approximately the equivalent of powering one computer continuously for five months. Furthermore, various toxic chemicals like printing inks, bleaching agents, and hydrocarbons are incorporated into the paper during the packaging’s development process. These toxic substances leach into the food chain during paper production, food consumption, and recycling through water discharges.

Innovative Sustainable Food Packaging Alternatives 

As we have seen, despite the advantages that make it extremely convenient for food suppliers to use them, some of the most popular food packaging materials are undoubtedly detrimental to the environment. And yet, it is not all bad news.

According to the latest Eco-Friendly Food Packaging Global Market Report, the global sustainable food packaging market is expected to grow from USD$196 billion in 2021 to over USD$210 billion in 2022 and up to USD$280 billion in 2026. Indeed, an increasing number of companies and startups – mostly located in North America – are investing time and resources in the development of alternative packaging materials which are easy to recycle, reuse, compost, or biodegrade and thus have a very minimal environmental footprint.

As is the case in many other sectors, the food industry is undergoing a revolution in terms of finding sustainable solutions to reduce its impact on the environment and meet sustainable consumer demands. Startups and packaging companies have developed incredibly innovative and sustainable solutions to the classic food packaging materials and while they are still used in very small quantities around the world in comparison to glass, plastic, and paper, they have the potential to radically transform the sector. 

Some examples include sustainable food packaging made with cornstarch, popcorn, and mushrooms, as well as innovative and biodegradable cutlery, plates, and containers realised with agro-industrial waste such as avocado pits.

EO’s Position: We have all the instruments we need to drastically reduce the detrimental impact of the food packaging industry on the environment. While consumers can do their part by shopping more consciously at grocery stores and bringing reusable containers when getting takeaway food, the situation will not change unless food retailers and restaurants step up the game as well. If we want to cut packaging waste, we need big companies to take the lead and make the necessary switch to more sustainable food packaging alternatives.

Microbeads were banned in the U.S. in 2015, but tiny bits of plastic known as microplastics, and another manmade family of chemicals called PFAS, are turning up in our environment and in our bodies. A recent survey conducted by Connecticut Sea Grant identified both materials as “top” contaminants of emerging concern this year.

This hour, we hear about efforts to track PFAS and microplastics in Connecticut. Experts at Connecticut Sea Grant and the State Department of Public Health join us to discuss the prevalence and impact of PFAS; and UConn Professor and Head of UConn’s Marine Sciences Department J. Evan Ward touches on microplastics in the Long Island Sound.

Plus, Elizabeth Ellenwood is an artist from Pawcatuck whose work draws attention to ocean pollution and microplastics. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Research Scholarship and an American Scandinavian Foundation Grant to travel to Norway, where she’s working with environmental chemists and marine biologists to produce scientifically-informed photographs focusing on ocean pollution.

GUESTS:

• J. Evan Ward: Professor and Head of Marine Sciences Department, University of Connecticut
• Sylvain De Guise: Director, Connecticut Sea Grant at UConn Avery Point
• Lori Mathieu: Drinking Water Section Chief, Connecticut Department of Public Health
• Elizabeth Ellenwood: Artist