Why waste should be food.
- by Ken Webster
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- 9 Mar 2011
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The idea that recycling is a ‘good thing’ pretty much pervades the formal schooling system, but it may be due for a long overdue rethink. Recent scientific investigations around recycled cardboard packaging made from old newspapers has thrown up some challenging results.
It seems that despite the use of inner plastic packaging mineral oils contaminating the recycled cardboard outer packaging can cross over into the contents, for example breakfast cereals, often breaking the food safety limits several time over. Not good. Other packaging news of recent weeks also prompts a rethink of a different but related kind as it is revealed that the overall environmental impact of using plastic bags may be less than that of replacement paper or long life cotton bags.
So what’s going on?
In the circular economy the basic principle is that waste = food. A quality of food that we all recognize is that it is nutritious not poisonous. The clue s in the name : food! Recycling in the naïve sense that is often communicated seems to ignore this rather important qualifier in the rush to assert that recycling is beneficial, but it is only beneficial if the materials are designed in the first place for the whole cycle, that they are designed for ‘fit’. Clearly newsprint is not.
© Joss Blériot
This major hiccup in the cardboard business does not mean that recycling is a bad idea but that it has to be seen within a broader systems based approach to handling materials and keeping up or even enhancing their quality and suitability for purpose. The appropriate educational question is: under what conditions is recycling of ‘X’ a ‘good thing’? It’s the same sort of argument over plastic bags against paper or indeed long life cotton bags: without a sense of the bigger picture, in terms of how often a long life bag is used, the consequences of growing cotton in a particular way or of producing paper then the idea that plastic bags are bad and other choices are better is trivializing the entire debate, to say the least.
The backwash of there appearing to be problems around recycling – at least if seen in a naïve way – is not going to do much for behavioural change approaches to resource and waste issues but it argues strongly for more critical thinking and systems perspectives on all these matters wherever possible.
Sources
5 comments
Bland Tomkinson wrote on April 11 2011:
The dabte about recycling paper, or using fresh wood pulp, has been going on for some considerable time. But this is a uni-dimensional approach to sustainability. Paper is normally formed from renewable, plant-based, resources whereas plastic bags take up some of our dwindling reserves of fossil fuels. And, do we ever stop to think 'Do I need all that packaging?' Clearly supermarkets do not.
James Deacon wrote on June 1 2011:
Totally agree with the comments from Bland Tomkinson, particularly with reference to the 'Do I need all that packaging?' question. My family buys pretty much the same amount and type of groceries today as we did 5 years ago, but the rate at which our plastic/metal recycling box fills up with packaging has increased consistently over this same period - most of which seems to be plastic trays for food, usually fresh fruit and veg. Since when did fresh goods, especially vegetables, need to come in individual presentation trays or pre-bagged portions? What's wrong with selling all veg 'loose'? Supermarkets tell us that they're only responding to customer needs when they are offering most veg pre-packed, but when was the last time any of us - as shoppers - were ever consulted about how we'd like our fresh goods sold to us? Something closer to the truth is that pre-packed goods can be bar-coded and pre-priced, then scanned at the checkout in seconds and transactions completed at great speed. By contrast, loose goods would need to be weighed at checkout, the product code/price to be manually looked-up by the cashier, all of which takes more transaction time - which the supermarkets don't want to pay for. The first supermarket that chooses to make a stand against this sort of over-packaging will probably make a huge increase in market-share as discerning shoppers switch to them, not to mention a drop in environmental impact and increase in profit by avoiding wasteful (and expensive) packaging at point of origin.
Trevor Bending wrote on October 5 2011:
Pretty well all the big supermarkets offer pre-packaged AND loose fruit and vegetables - the latter usually cheaper - so it IS a matter of customer choice. No-one in their right mind would buy fruit and vegetables in a supermarket anyway - the quality is generally poor and prices well above what greengrocers charge - with the possible exception of Lidl's.
Linda Stratford wrote on October 20 2011:
Whilst I would love to strongly agree to all of the comments about too much packaging I'm afraid that I can nolonger agree. Loose fruit and vegetables get bruised and bashed more than prepackaged and although we may not vocalise to our supermarkets that we want less packaging, we do show with our purse that we want "perfect" fruit and veg...there is more loose fruit left at the bottom of a box than prepackaged. If you don't believe me just take a look the next time you go in. So if we assume that packaging is part of the solution to less waste, we have to make that packaging part of a closed loop. The packaging can be made of substances which degrade to produce nutritious compost for the next cycle of fruit and veg production. Likewise the idealism associated with not shopping in a supermarket, whilst laudable is not achievable for the majority of working families who have to fit in the shopping whenever they can which may exclude local greencrocers opening hours. Therefore we have to work with the supermarkets to achieve closed loop food production and manufacturing, afterall they have the biggest market share and will make the biggest impact if they implemented change.
Sarah Outen wrote on January 27 2012:
I am currently in Japan and everything comes with heaps of plastic packaging out here - it is worse than in the UK. Much of the food I pruchased in China a few months ago was the same - sweets and cakes individually wrapped and then wrapped again.
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