Packaging and Food Waste: Martin Heller

0:00 welcome back to this Teachout on food 0:02 sustainability I'm here again with dr. 0:04 Martin Heller and today in this 0:06 conversation we are going to explore 0:08 food packaging and food waste and a 0:11 little bit more about kind of the 0:12 trade-off associated with wanting to 0:14 reduce our packaging consumption at the 0:17 store while at the same time wanting to 0:19 reduce the amount of food waste that we 0:21 experience so thank you so much for 0:23 joining us again yeah thanks for having 0:25 me again 0:26 so let's jump right into it so looking 0:28 at that specific trade-off I think a lot 0:30 of us are really interested in reducing 0:32 the amount of packaging that comes with 0:34 our food right we go to a grocery store 0:35 seems to always come packaged in a lot 0:38 of plastic and a lot of kind of other 0:40 materials but we obviously know there's 0:42 a trade-off there with you know food 0:44 waste and food raw and you know how do 0:46 we kind of transport and preserve our 0:48 food right so what is the kind of your 0:51 research and kind of what is your 0:52 experience with with that trade-off sure 0:55 yeah I mean it's important to remember 0:56 that that usually the role of food 1:00 packaging is to help get that food to an 1:04 end user in in a safe way that that so 1:09 that it's still consumable right we know 1:12 that that food waste is a huge problem 1:15 in our country up to 30 percent of 30 to 1:19 40 percent of the food that we produced 1:21 is wasted the greenhouse gas emissions 1:24 associated with that or also close to 1:27 you know thirty to forty percent of the 1:31 total greenhouse gas emissions 1:33 associated with our diet and and that's 1:35 just looking at the greenhouse gases 1:36 gases associated with producing that 1:39 food so oftentimes you know if we again 1:44 if we look at the lifecycle of food and 1:46 and look at the impact associated with 1:49 that production stage and then compare 1:51 it with what is contributed by some of 1:54 those down downstream stages processing 1:57 and packaging transportation in a lot of 2:01 for a lot of foods in a lot of cases the 2:04 contribution from those packaging 2:06 materials in terms of the greenhouse gas 2:09 emissions associated with with those 2:12 plastics you know the 2:13 materials of those plastics as well as 2:15 producing them is relatively small 2:18 compared to the impact of producing the 2:21 food so if we can find packaging 2:24 alternatives that help reduce food waste 2:27 either at the retail store or in 2:32 influencing how how consumers prepare 2:36 and use those foods lots of times that 2:40 can result in a net system benefit and 2:43 greenhouse gas emissions of course you 2:45 know we all of those things need to be 2:47 weighed with other trade-offs so things 2:50 like plastics in our in our land and our 2:53 ocean that that certainly are concerns 2:56 but it's an important lens to keep in 2:59 mind that there are some some of those 3:02 emission trade-offs sure so what I'm 3:04 here for me is it's complicated 3:06 it's complicated and oftentimes it 3:08 depends on which food we're talking 3:10 about right so if you're talking about a 3:11 high-impact food like beef if you can 3:16 add more packaging to it to reduce 3:18 spoilage it's likely going to be a good 3:20 thing because there's so much resources 3:23 that have gone into producing that food 3:25 that you know spending a little bit more 3:27 to to extend the shelf life and and 3:30 reduce the amount of waste that that 3:33 occurs is likely going to be a good 3:35 thing if we're talking about something 3:37 like salad greens or lettuces where the 3:41 emissions associated per per weight and 3:44 usually you have to have a pretty large 3:45 amount of packaging to to to carry and 3:50 transport that the trade-offs are a 3:51 little more iffy just saying well so 3:54 let's let's jump into another form of 3:58 kind of preservation of our food right 4:00 so here in the United States 4:02 refrigerators are ubiquitous they're you 4:05 know used to preserve our food 4:06 everywhere from refrigerated trucks and 4:09 shipping containers to kind of move the 4:11 food around once it gets to the grocery 4:14 store typically in in a freezer section 4:16 or even a refrigerator section and then 4:18 of course we buy it and we come home and 4:20 the first thing we do is we put it into 4:22 our refrigerator too to make sure 4:24 that it stays longer it stays fresh 4:26 right for example so can you tell us a 4:29 little bit more about how kind of 4:30 preservation and refrigeration 4:32 specifically kind of play into this 4:34 conversation yeah a number of years ago 4:37 we we looked at the energy use that is 4:41 associated with our food system 4:43 throughout from from the farm from 4:45 agricultural production through 4:47 processing retail you know distribution 4:51 transportation as well as in our home 4:55 which a large chunk of it is storage and 4:58 refrigerators and still to this day the 5:01 striking piece from that is just how 5:03 large of a contribution those at home 5:06 refrigerators make you know all of us 5:09 have fairly large capacity refrigerators 5:12 and our homes they use electricity they 5:15 use a fair bit of electricity and and 5:18 that adds up you know it's I think in 5:22 the like 10 to 15 percent of the total 5:24 energy use across our food system you 5:27 know which is on the order is the same 5:29 amount that gets used in agricultural 5:31 production so it's significant and of 5:36 course like you said you know that that 5:38 has a role but you know we can start to 5:42 think about ways of approaching 5:46 approaching our lives approaching the 5:48 designs of our communities in ways that 5:50 might change that in ways that people 5:53 may not need large capacity 5:56 refrigerators in our homes where they're 5:58 shopping on a more regular basis at a 6:00 community store and maybe you just need 6:02 a small refrigerator in your house all 6:04 of those kinds of design questions 6:06 community design questions play a role 6:09 here all right so it sounds like if we 6:11 can reduce the the size of the 6:13 refrigerator to as the unit something to 6:16 aspire to or any something that could 6:18 yeah there's another interesting 6:22 trade-off that has happened when we when 6:26 we phased out refrigerants that were 6:29 contributing to depletion of the ozone 6:32 layer I mean that was sort of an 6:34 international effort that was that was 6:36 very successful you know 6:38 we we made a big swap over to other 6:40 refrigerants because we learned that 6:42 these old ones were we're causing the 6:45 ozone to deplete a lot a lot of the 6:49 refrigerants that were popular in that 6:51 switch out turns out our ones that are 6:54 high that that contributes strongly to 6:58 to greenhouse gas emissions to global 7:00 warming so there's there's been an 7:03 additional amendment to that 7:05 international effort the Kigali Protocol 7:09 I think it's called to again work 7:11 towards phasing out some of those high 7:13 carbon footprint refrigerants so some 7:18 technology change that needs to happen 7:19 along with that interesting that's a 7:22 that's really helpful context so 7:24 thinking of you know our learners are 7:26 here to kind of reassess their 7:28 environmental impacts kind of in the 7:31 food spectrum of things so specifically 7:34 looking at packaging and food waste what 7:36 would be the kind of the main thing that 7:37 you would recommend yeah I mean I think 7:40 that just keeping in mind that that that 7:44 packaging has a role I mean I I think 7:47 it's it's it's valuable to aspire 7:50 towards using less packaging but you 7:53 know shunning food packaging just you 7:57 know outright may not be the best 8:00 approach I mean again it it that those 8:02 technologies have an important role to 8:05 play and can help in this additional 8:09 challenge of reducing food waste and and 8:12 changing the way that we that we 8:14 interact with our food ok great well 8:17 thank you so much for joining us Martin 8:19 and thank you for joining us in this 8:20 conversation and we hope to continue the 8:23 conversation about packaging in food 8:25 waste in the discussion forums with all 8:27 of you