Our plastic lives
Image: Suzanne Christiansen
My weekend, when I wasn’t playing rounders or swimming or boxing, was about the allotment. My weedy refuge where I go to examine what the snails and slugs have eaten and what’s left over, so that sometimes we get a meal out of it. I’m happy to say on Friday, we had sufficient potatoes, onions, chard and a few finger-length courgettes, to make up the vegetable portion of the meal.
I also brought along a bag, my grabber and some of the usual gloves, to pick up the detritus that blows in off the street. It was a windy weekend, there was a fair amount of junk to be collected – wrappers, bottles, bottle caps. Plus, the foxes like to steal things and chew on them. I found a baseball hat gnawed on, and a glove with three fingers chewed off.
So, plastics. In 2020, 367 million metric tons of plastics were manufactured, an amount that is forecast to triple by 2050, according to National Geographic. Japanese scientists from Kyushu University estimated 24.4 trillion microplastics in the world’s upper oceans—the equivalent of roughly 30 billion half-litre water bottles—a number in itself hard to fathom.
Now, it’s a big number, and this is why the dairy industry’s drive for sustainability is part of a global impetus to improve the numbers. Last week, for example, Arla Foods announced it was teaming up with Blue Ocean Closures in a formal partnership to create a fibre-based cap for its milk cartons. This could be a first in the dairy industry and would reduce Arla’s plastic consumption by more than 500 tonnes annually if implemented. The caps account for around 23% of Arla’s total plastic use, making them a big area of possible sustainable uptake.
Similarly, supplier Amcor has built a new production line for high-performance shrink bags and films for meat and cheese at its plant in Swansea, UK. The new shrink bags and films offer a more sustainable alternative to existing solutions, with a high barrier PVdC-free formulation, thinner material that maintains performance. We still need plastic for packaging, but maybe there are ways to make it better for the planet.
Don’t forget to register for the Dairy Industries Expo, 4-5 October in Harrogate, UK. www.dairyindustriesexpo.com
- Suzanne Christiansen, editor, Dairy Industries International.
Keep in touch via email: [email protected]
Twitter: @dairyindustries or LinkedIn: Dairy Industries International magazine
