How can changing the way we store and preserve our food reduce waste in the interests of a more sustainable future? And what do cities have to do with it? We unpack these questions and more to explain why food packaging as we know it might be past its use-by date.
The scale of the challenge is enormous. In 2019 alone, it’s estimated that the world wasted 931 million tonnes of food, roughly equivalent to enough fully loaded 40-tonne trucks full of waste to circle the Earth seven times.
Beyond the food itself, this also represents enormous amounts of wasted natural resources, energy, and labour and comes with significant moral and ethical implications – not least that millions of people continue to go hungry or malnourished around the world.
It’s clear to see that our approach to food waste needs a major shakeup. And with approximately 570 million tonnes of waste in 2019 occurring at the household level alone – the majority in urban centres – cities and the people that live in them will be crucial centres for change.
Many of us city dwellers buy more food than we need; few of us can tell when something is no longer okay to eat; and many cities around the world lack adequate composting or biowaste facilities. But, despite growing awareness around the effects of food waste on both people and the environment, a key part of the problem remains largely unwrapped: packaging.
Unpacking our Packaging Problem
Over the last century, food packaging has evolved to represent much more than the receptacle itself. Today, it plays a crucial role not only in protecting food but also in facilitating its handling and informing consumers about its contents. However, in terms of waste and its impact on the environment, the benefits don’t always outweigh the costs.
It’s estimated that up to half of all household food waste could be attributed to packaging functions alone, including because of difficulties in emptying a product (trying to scrape the last bit of yoghurt out of the jar, for example); an inability to reseal packaging; and packaging that is too large.
What’s more, most food packaging is single use, and, in the case of plastic packaging in particular, the environmental impacts of this are dire.
Approximately 32 per cent of the 78 million tonnes of plastic packaging produced annually is left to flow into our oceans – the equivalent of pouring one garbage truck of plastic into the sea every minute. On current projections, this would mean that, by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans.
Despite the growing presence of so-called ‘bioplastic’ alternatives – plastics derived from renewable resources – questions remain as to the true environmental and sustainability credentials of many of these products. And, with just a one per cent share of the global plastics market, environmentally friendly alternatives have some catching up to do before they are competitive with fossil fuel-based packaging.
To Chomp or to Chuck?
The materials are only one part of the problem. Research shows that one of the biggest causes of packaging related food waste comes down to confusion around labelling.
Despite most consumers using them as an indicator to avoid getting sick, in the US, food date labels (“Best Before”, “Best By”, “Use By”) have very little to do with whether something is safe to eat. For example, as long as the can is in good condition, tinned products are good to eat for years, and, while it may not taste as good, food that has been frozen for a long time is perfectly safe to consume.
Food manufacturers use date labels to encourage people to consume a product when it is at its desired quality, but, aside from labels for certain meats, this is rarely based on science.
What’s more, the specific language used can vary across brands, products and even jurisdiction. There are currently about 50 different types of date labels being used in the US alone, none of which are regulated.
Given these inconsistencies, it’s no wonder consumers continue to waste enormous amounts of food by throwing it out prematurely.
It’s not just a failure of regulation; it’s also one of education. In the European Union, where labelling is standardised – the best before date refers to the quality of the food; the use by date to its safety – consumers still confuse the meaning between the two. In 2018 it was estimated that 10 per cent of the 88 million tonnes of food waste generated every year was linked to date marking, including because of issues with misinterpretation and label legibility.
Let’s Not Pack It In Just Yet
For all the bad news, there are small signs of progress. The EU, for example, has since flagged date marking as an area for reform as part of its Farm to Fork strategy.
And, following similar moves by Marks & Spencer and Tesco, UK supermarket giant Waitrose has committed to removing best-before dates from nearly 500 fresh food products, encouraging customers to rely on their own judgement as to when something is no longer good to eat. (Although this appears to ignore the fact that knowing when fruit or vegetables are okay isn’t always so straightforward.)
In another example, startup SIRPLUS has proved that, contrary to assumptions, customers are willing to pay for food that would otherwise be wasted. The German company sells food from farmers, wholesalers, and other retailers that it is near or past its use-by date or visually unappealing (in the case of misshapen fruit and vegetables). With the noble aim of making it “possible for everyone to simply be part of the solution and do good with their daily consumption”, it claims to have saved 2,500 tonnes of food between 2017 and 2022.
But the elephant in the room is the packaging itself. Unfortunately, what’s on display at your local supermarket does not reflect the amount of innovation going on in the area.
The last decade has seen significant advances in intelligent or smart packaging technology – from radio frequency identification (RFID) tags that track food freshness over time to digital ‘noses’ that can identify when food is no longer good to eat, and chemical additives that can extend a product’s shelf life – as well as the development of alternative truly biodegradable polymers.
However, the uptake amongst suppliers and retailers has been slow, with poor levels of cooperation and communication between stakeholders acting to reinforce a business-as-usual approach and hamper change.
There are moves to change this at the national level. GLOPACK (Granting society with LOw environmental impact innovative PACKaging) is a European Union research initiative to designed to tackle the entire packaging problem, including poor uptake of sustainable packaging solutions.
The project is focusing on the development of biodegradable packaging materials made from agro-food residues, as well as new methods to preserve food and indicate spoilage. But its remit also includes the creation of a decision-making tool to help match suppliers and retailers with the right sustainable packaging solutions for their business.
The Wrap Up
As with many of the big challenges humanity faces today, it can be easy to lapse into hopelessness. Even recycling – something many of us do believing we have an impact on reducing packaging waste – has been shown to be, at best, less effective than many first thought and, at worst, deliberately misrepresented to perpetuate the production of more plastic.
But there’s a place for optimism as well as cynicism. The good news is that cities like yours can make a difference in the shift to reduce food waste through better packaging solutions. While national governments and international organisations have their roles, cities have the influence, the networks, and the resources to push for real change where these bodies can’t.
Creating policy frameworks to support more businesses like SIRPLUS or encourage supermarkets to rethink their food dating practices is something every city can do, as is supporting the development sustainable packaging requirements for products procured for municipal organisations and events.
In some places, action is already being taken. When it comes to plastic food packaging, for example, cities around the globe have signed up to the Plastic Smart Cities initiative, under which municipalities pledge to eliminate plastics in nature by 2030 through “leveraging policy instruments, financial mechanisms and the latest technological innovations”.
But what is a city if it’s not the people who live in it? It’s up to us as individuals to demand change at the ground level – from the businesses we patronise, the organisations we work with, and, ultimately, the cities we love.