Food for Environmental Thought

No expensive opinion poll is needed to find out if Americans want to preserve their environment. If asked whether their air, water and land should be kept clean, almost everyone would say, “of course.” Opinion and action, however, aren’t necessarily one and the same, even among consumers. A case in point can be found in packaging, an area where consumers can make some environmental choices every time they go to the grocery store.

Consider, for example, peanut butter, an all-time favorite food. For the past several years, most peanut butter has been sold in unbreakable plastic jars. Yet if consumers were asked if glass is better for the environment than plastic, most would agree that it is. They know that old glass can be recycled into new glass, and believe--incorrectly--that plastic cannot be recycled.

But if peanut butter is an occasional snack for adults, it is also a staple for children. And, as every parent knows, children will sometimes drop things--such as peanut butter jars. So, despite a stated preference for environmentally sound products, these same parents have an understandably greater preference for their children’s safety. In fact, glass and plastic jars containing the same amount of peanut butter have been put together on supermarket shelves, and the plastic jars outsold glass despite a higher price for plastic.

The issue of environmentally friendly packaging, then, involves more than switching to boxes, jars, bottles, bags and cans that can be easily recycled, or containers that will cause no harm to the environment when dumped in landfills. Other issues, such as convenience, the ability to keep foods fresh and safety--including against tampering--must be understood and dealt with.

For the corporations that make the packages, and those that make the products that go into them, the challenge for the next several years will be to come up with answers to the technical problems inherent in using certain materials, understand the consumer’s desires and needs and use their marketing skills to help create enough demand to make recycling economically feasible.

Packaging accounts for more than 30% of our nation’s solid waste stream, and it is the fastest-growing segment. One corporation that appears to be coming to grips with this challenge is H. J. Heinz Co.

Starting next year, Heinz will put its ketchup in plastic bottles made almost entirely of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The new bottles can be easily recycled into such things as carpeting through an existing and growing network of PET recycling centers.

Still, if all those easily recyclable bottles just end up in landfills, a multimillion-dollar development effort will have been wasted. So, Heinz plans to accompany its new container with a public awareness campaign designed to educate consumers about PET products and the need to recycle them.

If this marketing effort succeeds, it will probably replace campaigns that have emphasized biodegradable products. Already some of these campaigns are being abandoned as companies that make garbage bags, for instance, have announced they will no longer advertise them as degradable in sunlight. Obviously, bags buried in landfills never see the light of day.

While degradability helps control litter with some products (such as the plastic six-pack collars), the fact is that most degradable products still end up buried in landfills, and more than half the population of the United States lives in regions with less than 10 years of landfill capacity.

So degradability is not the answer. In fact, to the degree that degradable products reduce their value as recyclable nonreusable resources, they tend to exacerbate the problem.

Also, because some degradable packaging materials are not as strong as their contents require, more material and more adhesives have to be used to make a useful and durable package, thereby creating more trash.

Unlike some other challenges, answers to the trash problem aren’t likely to come from government. Lawmakers and regulators cannot mandate consumer behavior.

Leadership will have to come from a consumer whose enlightened self-interest has been raised to the point where recycling becomes part of the buying decision and who then has an incentive to take used containers to a recycling center or to separate items for curbside collection.

Only with the consumers directing the packaging can industry, retailers and environmental groups address the trash problem.

Eventually, consumers will have to adjust to the cost and effort required for environmentally friendly packaging, and so will business. Firms can assess current products to see where they are compatible with environmental needs.

Perhaps the layers of packaging and wrapping can be reduced.

Meanwhile, companies will have to develop or strengthen relationships with vendors and suppliers who can support their efforts with recyclable bottles and other packaging while they continue to invest in the waste management and recycling infrastructure so that materials resource recovery can move forward.

Once this upstream process has begun, companies can begin to look downstream to develop and promote new environmental management systems and products--all the while meeting consumer demands for attractive, convenient, and safe packaging.

This won’t be an easy task, but the consumer products and packaging industries may have an advantage over some other businesses in that they have a long history of adapting to consumer tastes and needs.