Day 4 - Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock?

One of the questions that keeps coming back to me is which packaging is most environmentally friendly? 

How about glass (rock)? Well it's made out of minerals and such (sand +limestone+heat) www.britglass.org.uk/about-glass. It's highly recyclable and the materials to make it are not renewable, but they are pretty abundant here in the U.S. It also does not have the chemical bisphenol A, which acts like estrogen (the Mayo Clinic suggests that "Exposure to BPA is a concern because of possible health effects of BPA on the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children." - see this link http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/bpa/faq-20058331) So not having BPA is clearly a plus for glass. However it is heavy and awkward to transport so it racks up some fossil fuel points due to its weight and bulk. It also gets a bigger carbon footprint because of the energy required to heat glass in the making and recycling process (Bauers). 

If not glass then, should I go for cartons? Well, they are made out of paper so they are biodegradable, right? But being made from paper also means they are made from trees...so they probably contribute to deforestation, although trees are "renewable" since they can be replanted. I read one article that touted cartons as the most environmentally friendly packaging option since they are both light-weight and biodegradable, but their findings were based on a study carried out by.....any guesses?? Yep. A carton manufacturing company. No bias there, right? See the link below to check it out for yourself. http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Carton-packaging-is-the-most-eco-friendly-claims-study

So if paper isn't the perfect option, maybe scissors (metal) are? Well, the good news is metal (aluminum and tin) cans tend to be recycled at a high rate (a can gets remade into another can - 68% of material used in aluminum cans is recycled). They are also pretty light weight and space efficient so they require less fuel to transport them. The bad news is that aluminum requires mining when any virgin material is needed and it also contains BPA (Bauers). 

How does plastic match up then (could plastic be anything but lizard...:)? Well, it's light weight and space efficient, but it's made partly from fossil fuels, has bisphenol A, and tends to be recycled at a lower rate (Bauers). And I'm pretty sure it kills lizards and anything else that eats it. Did I mention it's made from fossil fuels like oil? http://www.plasticseurope.org/what-is-plastic/how-plastic-is-made.aspx

Well, that leaves Spock then. Spock being the new scientific invention of plant-based bottles. How does Spock stack up? Well, Spock is in bed with CocaCola and has a large carbon footprint since he's coming from a galaxy far, far away : "Coca-Cola now makes a "PlantBottle" from 30 percent plants. Although some enviro groups didn't like that the plants were sugarcane coming all the way from Brazil, a company spokeswoman said the crop is "rain-fed" on "abundant arable land" (in other words, no rain forests were felled) and fertilized with organics. Coca-Cola has joined with four other companies to accelerate development of a bottle made totally from plants" (Bauers). Cheers to Coke for trying to be more environmentally friendly! Maybe not cheers just yet for Spock, but I love the idea of a more eco-friendly bottle. 

So in the end, what's the best option? I guess the best answer is "it depends." The important take-away, at least for me, seems to be to buy less packaging, reuse it when I can, and then always, always, always recycle regardless of whether it's rock, paper, scissors, or Spock.

Baurers, Sandy. "Which is greener: Glass bottles, plastic bottles, or aluminum cans?"

http://articles.philly.com/2012-07-23/news/32805629_1_pet-bottles-plastic-bottles-glass-bottles