When Costco tried to cut back on its plastic use earlier this year by packaging its popular rotisserie chickens in thin bags instead of bulky clamshells, it sparked complaints from some chicken lovers.
They say the bags are prone to leaking and getting oily, and the edges tend to tear. “My chicken juice spilled all over the trunk of my car!” one person complained on Reddit.
It was a new chapter in the packaging wars.
There is widespread agreement that the world needs to reduce its use of plastic. Plastic waste is filling landfills and clogging rivers and streams around the world. Recycling has not kept up, with less than 10% of plastic waste being recycled. Plastics can also contain chemicals that are linked to cancer and other health problems.
Curbing plastic packaging, which is often used only once and then discarded, is a logical first step. But putting it into practice is difficult for businesses, policymakers and consumers. Everyone has an opinion.
“Experiments with this technology are happening all over the place,” said Sandra Goldmark, a sustainability expert at Columbia University's climate department. “So far, many of the experiments have not worked. We haven't solved this problem yet.”
Costco's bagged roast chicken is a classic example of a “not-so-bad” solution, she says. “But the funny thing about not-so-bad solutions is they tend to disappoint everyone,” she says. “You have less plastic. You have less trucks on the road. But the chicken is still in a plastic bag and the car is still full of chicken juice.”
A proposed bill in New York state would require companies to find more sustainable options or pay a fee, and reduce their use of plastic packaging by 50 percent over 12 years.
Opponents of the law said it could mean the end of another American staple: sliced cheese, which they said would be a prime target if the law passes, given the ratio of plastic to cheese in individually wrapped packs.
“This bill allows New Yorkers to look forward to a future where they can buy unpackaged items like cereal, cheese and hot dogs off grocery store shelves and take them home,” Nelson Eusebio of the National Association of Supermarkets told the New York Post. The bill has passed the Senate but has not yet come up for a vote in the House.
Supporters of the bill scoffed, arguing that alternatives existed, such as using paper.
“It's clear that multi-billion dollar corporations and their lobbyists cannot embrace the earth-shattering concept of separating slices of cheese with wax paper,” said Judith Enck, executive director of plastics advocacy group Beyond Plastics.
Four other states — California, Colorado, Oregon and Maine — have laws aimed at reducing packaging. States and cities are also moving to ban single-use plastic bags. New York and Baltimore are suing plastic manufacturers, arguing that their promotion of single-use plastics harms public health and the environment.
Some companies are starting to make changes.
Amazon said last month it would replace plastic air pillows, which dent products during shipping, with recycled paper packaging, avoiding the use of about 15 billion air pillows per year. Bath & Body Works recently launched refills of its hand soap in paper cartons. In the UK, grocery chain Aldi is testing paper bands instead of bags to pack bananas, and is also selling wine in paper bottles.
Companies are also experimenting with ways to make plastics easier to recycle. In Britain this year, Coca-Cola, which has been targeted by environmentalists as a major plastic polluter, tested plastic Sprite bottles without stick-on labels that could make them harder to recycle. Instead, the bottles had an embossed logo.
Designing sustainable packaging is complicated because “there are so many trade-offs,” says John Thorgelsen, an expert on green consumption at Aarhus University in Denmark. For example, while glass bottles might be considered more environmentally friendly than plastic, that's not necessarily the case, since transporting heavy glass bottles requires more energy.
Climate-damaging food waste is also an issue to consider: although large containers of yogurt use less plastic than single-serve cups, studies have shown that people who buy containers tend to throw out more of it.
And, of course, there's functionality: Some shoppers have been using old Costco rotisserie chicken packaging as plates.
To eliminate plastic waste, experts say companies need to do one of two things: develop truly biodegradable or recyclable materials, which is a work in progress, or move to reusable or refillable packaging. Costco, for example, could let shoppers bring home reusable containers of chicken as many times as they like. Bulk stores that let customers bring home their own containers for nuts and grains are another example of this approach.
Costco says the chicken bags will save 17 million pounds of plastic each year, a feat that Columbia's Dr Goldmark said was worth celebrating.
“You don't want perfect to be the enemy of good,” she said, “but you can't lose sight of the fact that 'not bad' might not be good enough.”
