When I think about the foods I eat and the packaging they have, I, along with other people tend to forget where it ends up going. I typically only eat food with packaging when I’m having a snack, lunch for school, or if I’m eating food from a restaurant. The foods I eat usually come in different types of materials, like plastic containers, glass containers, aluminium foils, cardboard boxes, and plastic wrappers. I think companies choose these materials because it is cheap and efficient to make. Packaging is positive for the customer because it is convenient and ensures the product is safe and clean. Packaging can be negative for a customer, because they typically throw it away, and don’t use it again.

  Once we have eaten the food inside of the packaging, it usually gets thrown away. After one day the food packaging waste is usually in a garbage bin or sent to a landfill. From there, it goes to a transfer station, which is a temporary location for garbage trucks to drop off their waste. Once it is compacted and ready for transfer it is sent onto larger trucks. It is then sent to a material recovery facility. These are locations where debris is sorted to separate useful materials from the waste stream before it reaches the last destination. When the waste leaves the facility it is then sent to the final destination, which is the landfill. Here, the garbage decomposes, but it is a very slow process, due to the lack of oxygen. A year later, the waste is still at the landfill and left to decompose, but as I mentioned, this is a very slow, long process. Plastic can decompose in 100 years, but it usually takes 20-500 years.

 When food waste ends up in landfills, it produces large amounts of methane- a greenhouse gas that is even more powerful than carbon dioxide. Greenhouse gases like methane, CO2, and chlorofluorocarbons absorb infrared radiation and heat the earth’s atmosphere, thus, causing global warming and climate change.

 We can reduce waste in numerous ways:

1. Get rid of single-use items- and replace them with reusable ones. For instance, instead of using plastic straws, we can use metal ones, or instead of plastic containers use glass.
2. Buying Local- Not only does buying local mean less waste in terms of the packaging of the product, but it also means less waste in terms of the cost of emissions for transportation. 
3. Composting your food can significantly reduce the amount of waste being put in the landfill, and speed up the decomposition process substantially.
4. Buy less- the less you buy, the less you waste. Buying excessive amounts of stuff that you might not need is not only a waste of money but also a waste of packaging and materials.

In conclusion, there is a lot more we as humans need to do to reduce our waste, or there could be grave consequences, like an increase in pollution, overflow of landfills, and destruction of habitats. This is preventable, however, if we reuse products, buy local, compost food, and buy less.