Consumable Waste Assignment

Many of the foods we usually eat are packaged with plastic, cardboard and Styrofoam. Eggs uses cartons or Styrofoam.  Fast food usually uses plastic paper or cardboard to wrap the burger. Plastic bags or sealed plastics are constantly used for fruits, vegetables and other foods needed to be packaged by some type of plastic. Most of the food we eat come in different packages because the food we eat in a daily basis need to be secured in some sort of way. 

Why do you think that all of these materials were chosen specifically for the products purchased?

Eggs use cartons and Styrofoam so that the eggs don’t get damages or cracked before the customer purchases them. 

Chips use Plastic bags/ paper cans since it is very quick and easy to open. Some chips like pringles use paper can because it is made to be stacked so that the chip wont crumble to pieces. 

Rice use a durable sealed plastic packaging to protect rice producing excess air and moist, that could cause it to spoil. Since Rice is pretty heavy with the amount of rice in a package the package needs to be durable so it will not rip. 

Ramen noodles use two form of packaged instant noodles one in a plastic bag or in a plastic cup/bowls. The plastic cup/bowls is used for putting hot boiling water in it and the plastic bag is used for cooking it in the pot. 

Apples use plastic bags because it holds apples without the bag tearing apart and so the apples don’t fall out. Some grocery stores have apples with sturdy sealed plastics so that the apples will fall out. 

Meat/beef is usually packages in Styrofoam but is also wrapped in plastic. They use plastic to cover the meat to tightly seal it in place so that the meat will not go bad as fast. 

Chicken is the same for meat/beef usually purchased in Styrofoam but is also wrapped in plastic but if it’s a frozen chicken it’s in a sealed zip plastic or cardboard. 

Food packaging has its positive side which is protecting the food from getting dirty or with tightly sealed plastic that is not opened can last the product longer in the fridge than when it is opened and not sealed. Packaged in plastic bags can be very convenient because usually at a grocery store there are trays where you have to choose the fruit or vegetables one by one and put it in a plastic bag also It’s an easy access to the products and packages keep products organized. While there are positive things about food packaged plastics there are also negatives a negative would be when you open a product they lose their products quality and the other is that you’re not able to keep some of them close after you opened them. Another negative is if you don’t dispose the plastic in the right place it can end up in the ocean negatively hurting living species and the more plastic we use the more landfills are being filled up. When you are done eating something that used some kind of packaging material, we put it in the trash bin after the trash bin, the garbage goes into a bigger trash bins where garbage trucks come and pick them up usually once a week. The Garbage trucks dumps all of the trash that’s in it into a landfill. The trash is sorted into recyclable bins and some of it is dumped into landfill. Gas is released when the garbage decomposes, and we use that to be less dependent on fossil fuels. Some garbage is burned to also produce waste-to-energy electricity. Packaging waste after one day will mostly stay in the location it was put in; garbage, recycling etc. then it will be taken by garbage trucks to dump it into landfills. In the next few days the garbage will be dumped into landfills sorted into recyclable bins and some is dumped into landfill, when the garbage is dumped into landfill it decomposes. In one year, not all of the garbage will actually be decomposed since it takes hundreds of years for some package waste to decompose. Food waste is taken to landfills, but it gets composted instead, microorganism will compost/ break down food waste. This process produces a biogas of methane and carbon dioxide which can be used for heat, electricity and transport fuels.

Provide 3-4 suggestions for ways that consumers can decrease the amount of waste we create.

1) When you go do groceries make sure to use reusable bags instead of plastic bags to reduce usage of unnecessary plastic bags and piles of plastic bags in your home.

2) Another way consumer can decrease the amount of waste we create is to reuse containers instead of throwing it away because if we reuse container not only will it decrease the amount of waste we create, it is also helping the environment like the ocean since a lot of our plastics ends up in the ocean harming living species.

3)Make sure when you go out for groceries only buy food you know you will eat because I know a lot of us go out and buy a lot of food and half the time we don’t even finish it so we throw it out.