5 Ways to Reduce Packaging Waste

Image via Wikipedia

The manufacture and disposal of product packaging affects the environment in a myraid of ways - from the extraction of virgen resources, emissions associated with production, the space it takes up in our landfills, to the litter on our roadsides.

While a certain amount of packaging is perhaps necessary, the main consideration of most manufacturers when it comes to packaging their products is simply to entice consumers to buy more stuff.

For most people, packaging makes up the bulk of their garbage It certainly seems to be the majority of litter I see in the streets (I suppose any advertising is good advertising right?).

Here's a few suggestions to help keep packaging out of the sea, the landfills and off the streets & roadsides:

1. Take Your Own Bags when you Shop

Need a reason why?

Five trillion plastic bags are made each year. Of these bags, one billion are thrown away, with only 1 percent finding their way into a recycle bin. The end result of this is around 1 billion birds and mammals dying each year by the ingestion of plastic. (From Treehugger: 20 Gut-Wrenching Statistics About the Destruction of the Environment)

2. Buy in Bulk

Whether you buy from your local Bin Inn bulk food store and take your own reusable containers or simply buy prepackaged food in super sized containers from the supermarket, buying in bulk means less packaging!

Shampoo would have to be a prime wasteful packaging culprit What's with offering a product that many people use every day or two in such small packages? If you want to go (almost) packaging free with your hair care use baking soda instead.

3. Make it From Scratch

Pasta sauce, biscuits, bread . . . make it yourself from real ingredients. It tastes better, is better for you, is often cheaper than the shop bought stuff . . .and there's no packaging to dispose of.

4. Brown Bag It

Take your own lunch to school or work. It will save you a bunch of money, and when you use reusable containers and cutlery it doesn't produce the packaging waste of a bought lunch.

5. Buy Less Stuff

Of course, the most effective way to reduce packaging waste is to not buy things in the first place. If it has excessive packaging leave it in the shop. Better still, write a letter to the store owner and the manufacturer and tell them why you chose not to buy their product.

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• Challenge Number 1 2009: Bag the bags! (cluttercut.blogspot.com)

Don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from!

There are times when an argument put forward is so glaringly flawed, breathtakingly idiotic and utterly without common sense that it defies belief. This I believe is one of them:

“Besides, the whole concept that we’re “running out of room” to put our garbage and/or have landfills is absolutely ridiculous. If you took every man woman and child currently living on the Earth (6,706,993,152 as of July 2008) and moved them all to Australia we’d each still have roughly a third of an acre of our own private land (Australia is roughly 2,967,909 sq mi. There are 640 acres in a square mile which means there are 1,899,461,760 acres in Australia. Divided by the Earth’s population, we each get 0.28 acres). That would leave the entire rest of the planet empty. Do you not think we could fit both recreational area as well as vast amounts of landfill space on all of North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia? Of course I’m not suggesting that we undertake such a ridiculous plan, but it should clarify that the Earth has plenty of empty land that could be used for waste disposal.”

Morgan Hill Review

I am flabbergasted that any sane person would put forward such a ludicrous suggestion. Even with the caveat at the end of the paragraph. In fact, that makes it worse “the Earth has plenty of empty land that could be used for waste disposal”.

I don't know of any vast tracts of empty land that could be better used as a landfill. Image via WikipediaPerhaps the beautiful Fiordland National Park in New Zealand. Its full of sandflies and really doesn't serve any useful purpose.

Image by nunavut via FlickrThe Sahara desert, I guess, really isn't the most productive area, we could do without that.

Image by Ron Layters via FlickrOh, the Grand Canyon – you wouldn't even have to dig a hole there!

Honestly, have people become so deeply disconnected with the land that they only see it as having value if it is under cultivation, making money, or directly and measurably benefiting the needs of humankind?

The whole idea that there is “plenty of empty land that could be used for waste disposal” calls to mind the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. If we continue to squander the planets natural resource as we are, if we pay no mind to the mindnumbingly vast quantities of waste we produce as a result of our consumption, then sooner or later we will find ourselves sitting in front of a pile of dirty dishes.

Nature is not here to serve us. It will continue on perfectly well long after we are gone from the planet. However, we will not fare so well if the earth's eco-system becomes irreversibly changed and can no longer sustain the conditions we need for our continued survival. Its in our best interests to consume wisely, to live lightly, and to value the environment in and of itself.