How much of the foods you eat come in packaging and what packaging material are used?

Myself I eat a lot, it may not look like it but when I come home after school I shove food in my mouth. When I go to school my food in my lunch box are in variety of packaging, such as my chips that are in bags, my juice in cardboard boxes, and my crackers in a plastic bag.  At home at night time I eat my daily cereal and it comes in a big cardboard box, before my soccer I eat a granola bar and its in some kind of aluminum type material.

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

I think the products such as cereal and chips, the materials used for the products protect and prevent them from turning stale. The juice boxes or a plastic bottle I’m guessing are for the liquid from expiring too fast.

How is the packaging both positive and negative for the consumer?

Some packaging is easy to open and the consumers like that, but most of the time there bad for the environment. Such as plastic, which was one of the concerns a month ago about plastic being in the ocean. Plastic decomposes after 1,000 years, a lot of big name brands are changing there packaging to an environmentally friendly one. There are packaging that can be reusable and that’s a positive for consumers, cardboard boxes can be used in many ways.

What happens to these packaging materials once we have eaten the food inside?

Plastic sadly in  most cases ends up in the ocean and it effects our sea creatures, it can be easily blown away and from there they get cluttered in the drains and end up in the ocean. Styrofoam goes to the waste and should not be recycled in your everyday recycling bin, only if there are places where they allow you to recycle Styrofoam.

Where are the waste after a day, a year, a hundred years?

Plastic decomposes after 1,000 years, Styrofoam decomposes after 500 years, and lastly cardboard only takes 3 months for it to decompose.

What happens to the food waste?

The process of recycling food waste is known as anaerobic digestion. Micro-organism break down food waste, it is used for farming as a natural fertilizer. Food waste can also create renewable energy.

Ways to decrease the amount of waste we create?

Put your food waste in the correct bin, try to use less plastic or materials that take longer to decompose, re use bags and don’t use plastic bags, reusable containers, compost.