Packaging

In general, foods that have been processed need to be stored in containers that also add more to the cost of producing food. In Québec, about 8 cents out of every dollar spent to buy food at the supermarket is consecrated to packaging (website of the Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'alimentation du Québec).

The type of container also influences the cost of packaging. For example, the small paper box containing 455g of frozen vegetables requires about 3,020 kJ of energy to make, while a steel can containing the same amount of vegetables needs 4,210 kJ. The former is, then, more expensive to produce, at least from the packaging point of view. The following table shows the amounts of energy required to produce different packaged foods.

Table 1 - Energy needed to produce various packaged foods

Package	KJ
Wooden berry basket	290
Styrofoam tray (size 6)	900
Molded paper tray (size 6)	1,607
Steel can, aluminum top (12oz)	2,377
Small paper set-up box	3,022
Steel can, steel top (16oz)	4,211
Glass jar (16 oz)	4,282
Coca-Cola bottle, non-returnable (16oz)	6,157
Aluminum TV dinner container	6,262
Aluminum can, pop-top (12oz)	6,877
Plastic milk container, disposable (0.5 gallon)	10,259
Coca-Cola bottle, returnable (16oz)	10,439
Glass milk container, returnable (0,5 gallon)	18,646

Source: After Pimentel et al ,1996

Packaging represents 15% of the total volume of kitchen waste in Québec (website of the Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'alimentation du Québec). This amount of waste can certainly be reduced by appropriate recycling and re-use. The National Protocol on Packaging, adopted in 1990, sought by the year 2000, to reduce by half the volume of discarded packaging in 1988. The first results showed that the volume of discarded packaging had already been reduced by 21 % between 1988 and 1992.

Below: plastic packaging, in this case it's Pepsi bottles.

Returnable and recyclable packages are however more expensive and costly to produce. For example, Table 1 shows that a returnable Coca-Cola bottle requires for its production 4,282 kJ more energy than a non-returnable bottle. When the energy costs of collection, transportation and cleaning for the returnable bottles are considered, about the container needs to be recycled at least 4 times in order to gain some kind of monetary and energy advantage.