The pressing need to avoid Flexible Packaging

This is a product and manufacturing chain that needs to be of deep concern to all of us for two primary reasons:

Health: Ideally we should not be consuming anything that is packaged and is preserved. All intake of food should be alive. Food becomes us and each morsel that we intake effects our very being. Packaged and processed food goes through an industrial process that eliminates most beneficial nutrients in order to elongate its life. There is an energy exchange that happens when food becomes us. All packaged food is dead and hence it fills us but does not provide us the benefits that would come from live energy and nutrients. It is important to eat as close to the source as possible.

Processed foods contain large amounts of sodium, sugar and fats in order to make them taste better (https://www.lhsfna.org/index.cfm/lifelines/may-2019/the-many-health-risks-of-processed-foods/)

Ecology: The aim of a flexible pack is the protect the contents for a long period of time. We want our snack to to taste fresh even when we open the pack 6 months after the date of manufacturing. This means that the product has to be significantly engineered to ensure no air or moisture seeps in. This is achieved through adding multiple layers of inorganic products. This does do the job of retaining not just the ‘crispiness’ and also the ‘aroma’ but there is no way to separate the layers and hence the product does not remain recyclable and is definitely not degrading at least for a 100,000 years.

Source: https://www.sekisui-sc.com/flexpack/

Each of the layers above come from a non-sustainable source. They are either oil/ cellulose or mineral derivatives that have been produced through a heave industrial process utilising energy, water and other resources.

Both health and ecology and deeply interlinked. We are part of nature and as soon as we move away from it there are effects that impact our very core. Our effort in altering foods and elongating shelf life impacts both us and our planet.

It needs to change. We need to learn from the idea of ecological succession where mature ecosystems differ from the immature ones (Allenby, Braden R. and William E. Cooper, “Understanding Industrial Ecology from a Biological Systems Perspective”).

Application of Ecological Succession:

1) Life Cycle

Flexible packaging makes our interaction with food short, straightforward and linear. We extract old biomass (petroleum) and minerals, convert to various industrial products, create and flexible package, process and package food. We buy a package, consume the contents and dispose the package. This package either ends up in a land fill and is going to stay there forever or is burnt generating noxious gasses.

Mature natural systems have a complex life cycle where the chain is more complex. The packaging actually grows around the food. There is actually all sorts of protection as per the need and evolution. We find liquid packaging (coconuts), super strong packaging (abalone), spongy packaging (pomelo), complex and layered packaging (pomegranates)... the list can go on. Packaging adapts to the needs of the food rather than the food adapting to the packaging. The shape and size of the packaging is defined by the contents rather than standardised. Most packaging is based on complex structures created by minerals, proteins and cellulose and decompose to become food to close the life cycle in the end.

Recommendation:

Everything in nature comes packaged and we need to utilise that packaging. The packaging in nature provides all sorts of details regarding the contents, expiry, condition etc and same needs to be utilised. Produce is supposed to only last a certain amount of time in nature and that is when it should be utilised. Products are also seasonal for a reason and we need to eat more in accordance with the same. We need to ideally eliminate all complex packaging and minimise even simple packaging. If we are to use any packaging it must be compostable. This definitely means that there would be no heavily marketed, palette inducing processed foods which would benefit the health and ecology.

2) Production

We are in a continuous race for growth and huge quantities of packaging are produced and we use various marketing tools to try and sell the same. I see various natural products with their own packaging (bananas and oranges) being packaged further in plastic! Packaging is made convenient. We can carry produce with us and consume as and when desired. The food influences the palette and provides short term energy through sugars creating an addiction and desire for more consumption. The complete structure is towards producing huge quantities.

Mature natural systems go for quality. Nuts have amazing protective packaging and trees produce as per ecological balance (Kimmerer RW, Braiding Sweetgrass). They may produce more when the number of squirrels are lesser and then not produce when the numbers rise. There is only one pineapple in every bush and the production is seasonal

The packaging is in exact quantity of the produce. No empty packaging is produced and no product comes without packaging.

Recommendation:

We need to shift to producing packaging locally and sustainably. There are large global producers at present looking to transport their products all across the globe. We need to minimise the need for packaging and change our production methods to being more sustainable. We need to look to grow packaging along similar lines to nature. We need to create artificial photosynthesis to convert carbon to sugars and cellulose and only let out oxygen instead of all the waste we create today

3) Nutrient Conservation (Closed loop recycling)

Flexible packaging is created from petroleum/ metals and/or cellulose. All 3 base materials have their source in nature. There is beginning to be some usage of bio-plastics and that is also derived from natural substances. The substances are extracted through various means like drilling, excavation or felling. They are then converted to different materials. At the end of the life cycle we have taken the materials and changed their structure and it cannot be put in a closed loop anymore as the product created is not able to be recycled.

Mature natural systems have a different plan and nutrients are conserved through decomposition and breaking down into the original base material. Minerals and other building blocks like carbon break into their original state and again become food for another organism thus keeping the cycle in a closed loop (McDonough W, Cradle to Cradle)

Recommendation:

In my understanding there is no such thing as ‘recycling’ as all products that do get ‘recycled’ are mostly ‘downcycled’ utilising enormous amounts of energy in collection, segregation, transportation and then industrial processing and re-transportation. All packaging needs to break down and every home/ community needs to have a facility for composting. Our wet waste is rich and organic and we cannot afford to dispose it the way we do. We have to ensure all packaging is either natural or compostable (if industrially produced) and each citizen needs to adopt composting to ensure that we return all the richness back into the planet.

 4) Role of Detritus (dead organic matter)

Industrial flexible packaging is dead to start with but since it is inorganic, processed and layered it will never decompose or if it does disintegrate it will still be in a micro-particle state that would harm life. The idea of detritus is not taken into consideration when producing such substances whereas it is completely integrated into a mature ecosystem.

A mature ecosystem is in a constant state of regeneration where destruction is equal to creation (hindu deity Shiva). The end of life is only a state where an organism proves regenerative for another and this process continues endlessly. It is the very basis on which the ecosystem becomes perpetual until there is an external intervention that disturbs equilibrium.

Recommendation:

Very similar to the previous recommendation. Each piece of packaging must become compostable where it decomposes and becomes beneficial for other species. There needs to be no packaging that is created without the end of life as its very core which is the system nature follows.

5) Entropy (energy lost)

There is a continuous energy loss at so many levels when we think of flexible packaging. We utilise enormous amounts of fossil fuel based energy in extraction, processing and transportation. We also convert the materials own energy to inert and since it is inert it also does not contribute at the end of life. Moreover we significantly alter the energy of the contents in the packaging by reducing nutrition and replacing them with empty calories.

The energy loss in a mature ecosystem is low. Energy is brought in primarily through the sun and minerals from the earth. This energy is converted, stored in different forms and either released or converted at the end of life. There is more loss of energy as we go higher in the food chain, however there is a natural optimisation and balance that takes place when the ecosystem is in balance. 

Recommendation:

There are various changes that are needed for optimising entropy:

- We need consume more locally and transport less.

- We need to eat more seasonal.

- We need to utilise natural packaging that is already a part of the food.

- We need to process less and consume food as close to the original form as possible.

- All production systems need to move more and more towards regeneration not just ‘reduction’ or ‘sustenance’. 

- All packaging produced needs to ideally be near the usage point, produced only as per need and be completely compostable and regenerative

- We need to eat more ‘alive’ and avoid ‘processed’ foods that come out of inorganic packaging.

- We need to reserve less and eat more fresh.

When we are talking of ecological harm, we mostly only focus on ‘plastic bags’ whereas the bigger impact to both health and ecology emanates from flexible packaging. We need to make a concerted effort to move away from the system of processing and packaging foods and switch to eating fresh, healthy, alive and unpackaged.