Eating differently against the climate crisis | Part 3: Packaging and Transport

“You are what you eat,” says a saying. Often true, but not always. What is certain, however, is that we can have a major influence on the climate crisis with our food purchases and eating habits. After Part 1 (Ready meals) and Part 2 (Meat, fish and insects) Part 3 of my series is about the packaging and transport routes of our food.

Whether meat, organic, vegetarian or vegan - the packaging is problematic. Germany produces the most packaging waste in the EU and consumes most of the plastics in the Union. Our country left the world 2019 million tons in 18,9 Packaging waste so around 227 kilos per head. At Plastic waste most recently it was 38,5 kg per inhabitant. 

Tasty plastic

Plastic, in East Germany plastic, is the collective term for plastics made from petroleum, mostly polyethylene (PE), the poisonous and difficult to recycle polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET), from which most beverage bottles are made. Coca-Cola produces three million tons of packaging waste every year with its one-way bottles. Lined up next to one another, the 88 billion plastic bottles from the Brause Group annually make the journey to the moon and back 31 times. In second and third place among the largest producers of plastic waste from the food industry are Nestlé (1,7 million tons) and Danone with 750.000 tons. 

In 2015, 17 billion single-use beverage containers and two billion cans were thrown away in Germany. Nestlé and other manufacturers are also selling more and more coffee capsules, which increases the mountain of waste. From 2016 to 2018, sales of the disposable capsules rose by eight percent to 23.000 tons, according to the Deutsche Umwelthilfe DUH. There are four grams of packaging for every 6,5 grams of coffee. Even supposedly or actually "biodegradable" capsules do not solve the problem. They do not rot or rot too slowly. That's why they're sorting out the composting plants. They then end up in the waste incinerator.

Recycling usually means downcycling

Although garbage disposal in Germany is busy collecting yellow bags and emptying packaging waste bins, little is recycled. Officially, it is 45 percent of all plastic waste in Germany. According to Deutsche Umwelthilfe, the scanners in the sorting systems do not recognize black plastic bottles. These end up in waste incineration. If you then factor in what does not reach the waste recyclers, the recycling rate is 16 percent. New plastic is still cheaper and many mixed plastics can only be recycled with great effort - if at all. Usually only simple products such as park benches, garbage cans or granules are made from recycled plastic. Recycling here usually means downcycling.

Only 10% of plastic waste is recycled

On average worldwide, only about ten percent of used plastics become something new. Everything else goes to waste incineration, landfills, the countryside or the sea. Germany exports around one million tons of plastic waste every year. Now that China is no longer purchasing our waste, it is now ending up in Vietnam and Malaysia, for example. Because the capacities there are insufficient for recycling or at least orderly incineration, the waste often ends up in landfills. The wind then blows scraps of plastic into the next river, which carries them into the sea. Researchers are now finding up to six times more plastic than plankton in many marine regions. They have now proven the traces of our plastic consumption in the high mountains, in the melting arctic ice, in the deep sea and in other seemingly remote places in the world. 5,25 trillion plastic particles swim in the oceans. That makes 770 pieces for every person in the world. 

"We eat a credit card every week"

Fish, birds and other animals swallow the stuff and starve to death on a full stomach. In 2013, 17 kilos of plastic were found in the stomach of a dead whale - including a 30 square meter plastic sheet that the wind in Andalusia had blown into the sea from a vegetable plantation. Microplastics in particular end up in our bodies via the food chain. Scientists have now found traces of tiny plastic particles in various places in human faeces and urine. The test subjects had previously eaten or drank food wrapped in plastic. “We eat a credit card every week,” the nature conservation organization WWF headlined one of their reports on the plastic contamination of our food. 

Packaging film and plastic bottles contain plasticizers such as phthalates and the substance bisphenol A, which probably promotes the formation of cancer cells, disrupts the hormonal balance in the body and increases the risk of numerous other diseases. In the tissue of deceased Alzheimer's patients, researchers found seven times as much bisphenol A as in the tissue of other dead people who were not suffering from Alzheimer's disease. 

Get food in your own boxes

Anyone who brings food home from the restaurant can bring their own returnable boxes. The German Food Association has one to refill the boxes you have brought with you Hygiene guidelines released. In the big cities there are now deposit systems for food boxes, for example from recircle or rebowl. You can also have the goods filled into bowls and cans you brought with you at the fresh food counters in supermarkets. If a salesperson refuses: The hygiene rules only stipulate that the boxes must not be passed behind the counter.

Toothpaste in a glass and deodorant sticks

Toothpaste, deodorant, shaving foam, shampoos and shower gel from disposable plastic bottles or tubes can also be easily replaced. They are available by the glass in numerous organic and unpackaged stores - deodorant as a cream, hair and body soap without packaging in one piece and shaving soap in reusable metal jars. Since these alternatives are more economical, they only appear more expensive than the competition on the supermarket shelf. For example, a glass of toothpaste for seven or nine euros is enough for one person for more than five months.

Unpacked only apparently more expensive

Unpacked storeswho sell such products and foods without any packaging, this knowledge should bring many new customers. Unpacked items can also be found in supermarkets, for example in the fruit and vegetable department. Drinks and yoghurts are available in deposit glass bottles. They show a better environmental balance if they come from the respective region. Nobody in northern Germany would have to buy yoghurt or beer from the south if the same goods from their own area are on the shelf next to them. The same applies to North German products in the south, Irish butter or mineral water from the Fiji Islands. 

Water from the tap instead of mineral water from the plastic bottle

Packaging-free tap water from the tap is significantly cheaper and, thanks to extensive controls in Germany, at least as good as imported or domestic spring water that is only pumped from the ground. If you like carbon dioxide in the water, take a bubbler with refillable cartridges. 

The demand for food from the neighborhood is increasing across Germany. The term "regional" is not protected. Therefore the boundaries are fluid. Nobody can say whether the region ends after 50, 100, 150 or more kilometers. If you want to know, ask the dealer or look at the place of origin of the goods. Many markets now indicate this voluntarily. 

However, what we buy is much more decisive for the climate and environmental balance than the origin of our food. A 2008 study by Carnegie Mellon University in the United States compared the climate footprints of different foods. Conclusion: the resource consumption of meat production is so much higher than that of grain and vegetable cultivation that transport expenses are hardly significant. For regional fruit and vegetables, the researchers determined CO2 emissions of 530 grams / kilo of goods. Meat from the respective region has 6.900 grams of CO2 / kg. Fruits imported from overseas by ship cause 870 grams of CO2 emissions per kilo, and fruit and vegetables flown in produce 11.300 grams of CO2. The carbon footprint of meat imported from overseas by plane is disastrous: Every kilo of its own weight pollutes the atmosphere with 17,67 kg of CO2. Conclusion: Plant food is the best - for your own health, the environment and the climate. Products from organic farming do significantly better here than conventional goods.

The last part of the series then deals with food waste and gives you tips on how to easily avoid it. Soon here.