Tag: packaging

Living Without Plastic

  • Cheryl Lohrman victorious after finding a specialty deli that would sell her cheese and put it, plastic free, in her steel tin. (Photo courtesy of Sadie Babits)

We use a lot of plastic. Every year some 30 million tons of plastic in the U.S. from diapers to bottles get tossed in landfills. One woman wants to change those numbers. She’s trying to live her life without plastic. Sadie Babits caught up with her to find out if that’s really possible.

Transcript

We use a lot of plastic. Every year some 30 million tons of plastic in the U.S. from diapers to bottles get tossed in landfills. One woman wants to change those numbers. She’s trying to live her life without plastic. Sadie Babits caught up with her to find out if that’s really possible.

When Cheryl Lohrmann comes to the grocery store all she sees is plastic. Plastic yogurt containers, cheese wrapped in plastic shrink-wrap, juice bottles, plastic bags. She doesn’t want this stuff in her life. So Lohrmann decided she’d vote with her wallet by refusing to buy anything with plastic.

“We’re at cherry sprouts grocery store in Portland, OR where I’m going to purchase some cheese and some eggs.”

Eggs are no problem. She just puts them in her used egg carton. But cheese is a different story. She has a small steel tin that looks like it belongs with her camping gear – not the grocery store. And Lohrmann has a special request for the guy behind the counter.

“And that is if I get the cheese not wrapped up in plastic but just in this container or maybe you could put this on paper.”

“Aahhh. I don’t think we can do that because it needs to be wrapped up.”

Lohrmann gets that reaction a lot. So she won’t buy cheese here. It means a trip to another shop – this time a high-end specialty deli.

LouAnne Schooler owns this store. She explains to Lohrmann why they use plastic.

“Plastic, it’s the unfortunately simplest choice because we wrap and re-wrap continuously throughout the day and it can’t be left unwrapped and people need to see the cheese so that precludes it from being wrapped in most papers.”

But Schooler says she’s only too happy to help people like Lohrmann who don’t want their cheese shrink- wraped. So she drops the cheese –plastic free – into Lohrmann’s tin.

“That’s a good chunk of cheese. Magical moment here–thanks for letting me do that”

“Sure.”

Lohrmann started going plastic free a couple of years ago after reading Elizabeth Royte’s book Garbageland. The author tracked her trash to find out where it ended up. The chapter on plastic struck a nerve with Lohrmann.

“I think it’s been taken too far when you have toothpicks individually wrapped in plastic. You know you just start to think is that really necessary given the fact that this is such a toxic material that doesn’t have high enough recycling rights to really justify having it.”

Lohrmann also gets miffed that you end up paying for plastic three times. You pay for it at the grocery store and again to have it hauled to the landfill. Finally, she says we pay for it environmentally – plastic doesn’t disappear. So you might think it’s a little nuts to even think about living a life free of plastic. Lohrmann gets that.

“It is hard right now to feel like you can maneuver to get whatever you want without plastic.”

“Ok, so on a scale of one to ten–ten being plastic free–where are you?”

“I would say probably a nine.”

That’s a nine when it comes to buying groceries. Because let’s face it. Plastic is everywhere even in Lohrmann’s home. There’s her computer, picture frames, even the parts on her bike. She realizes going plastic free is nearly impossible but she’s willing to try to send a message especially to businesses that we need to reduce the amount of plastic in our lives.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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Inside BPA PR Meeting

  • BPA doesn't line just baby products - it is in many canned foods and drinks (Source: Tomomarusan at Wikimedia Commons)

Food-packaging executives and
lobbyists for the makers of the
chemical bisphenol-A, often
called BPA, met in Washington
DC last week to come up with PR
strategies. Their message is:
BPA is safe. Lester Graham reports
someone took notes at that meeting
and then leaked them to reporters:

Transcript

Food-packaging executives and
lobbyists for the makers of the
chemical bisphenol-A, often
called BPA, met in Washington
DC last week to come up with PR
strategies. Their message is:
BPA is safe. Lester Graham reports
someone took notes at that meeting
and then leaked them to reporters:

Lyndsey Layton got ahold of those notes. She reports for the Washington Post.

“According to these notes, they called it the ‘holy grail’ spokesperson would be a pregnant, young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.”

Ironic in that many studies associate BPA with birth defects.

John Rost is the Chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance.

He says the reporters got bad notes. He says it only came up because environmental activists used pregnant women to testify against BPA.

“We discussed that as an option and dismissed it and actually find it a little ironic that we are being criticized.”

Some retailers have taken toys and baby bottles made with BPA off the shelf in response to a consumer backlash.

It’s likely most consumers don’t yet realize the chemical also lines beverage and food cans.

For The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.

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Zapping Germs Off Your Food

  • Researcher Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Researchers are working overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:

Transcript

Researchers are working
overtime to find ways to kill dangerous bacteria in food such as Salmonella and E. coli. Rebecca Williams reports one researcher has found a new way to kill bacteria:

Food processors expose produce like lettuce to ozone for a few seconds or minutes to kill bacteria.

Kevin Keener has been working on a device that turns the air inside food packaging into ozone.

Keener is a food process engineer at Purdue University.

He attaches the device to the outside of food packages – like a bag of lettuce – and applies electrodes that send high voltage through the bag.

“Visually it’s very Frankenstein-ish. It’s a safe process, there is a high voltage, but it’s similar to a spark you’d get with an electric fence.”

Keener says the ozone spends more time with the food so it kills more bacteria.

There’s a problem though – in some of their tests the device turned green spinach white.

So there are a few kinks to work out. But food companies are interested and we might see this commercialized in a year or two.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Businesses Going Lean and Green

  • Marco's Pizza changed the size of its boxes to fit more on distribution trucks. It's also switching to recyclable plastics for chicken wings. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Times are tough for the economy,
so lots of headlines tell us that the
end is near for the burgeoning green
market. But some analysts say the
economic downturn could encourage more
companies to be environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Times are tough for the economy,
so lots of headlines tell us that the
end is near for the burgeoning green
market. But some analysts say the
economic downturn could encourage more
companies to be environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant reports:

When stock prices plummeted this year for Whole Foods
Market, a lot of people saw that as a sign that green
companies were wilting during this dark time in the economy.

Whole Foods has one of the best known names for natural
and sustainably made products and caters to people who
are willing to pay more for them.

“You know, it’s really easy to look at stores like Whole
Foods, or companies selling green products, and see that
they’re not doing as well as last year and saying, ‘oh, the
green economy is tanking.’”

Author Joel Makower has chronicled the rise of the green
movement in corporate America through many articles, and
in his recently published book “Strategies for the Green
Economy.”

“The fact is that no retailer, except for Wal-Mart, is doing
better than last year. They’re all doing much, much worse.
So green products sink and swim along with the overall
economy. The economy is really bad right now, so a lot of
these products aren’t doing as well.”

But Makower says the green movement has a leg up on the
rest of the economy – because what consumers are buying
is only part of the story.

(sound of Marco’s Pizza Shop)

The smell of garlic and cheese and dough baking at Marco’s
Pizza is enough to make anyone hungry when they walk in.
While some of the biggest names in the pizza biz are closing
down stores, this relatively small Ohio-based chain is
growing like gang-busters, tripling the number of stores and
franchising in 14 states.

Purchasing manager Don Vlcek says, earlier this year,
prices of everything from the mozzarella to the plastic cups
were on the rise.

“When all of the costs going into restaurants started going
up, like I’ve never seen, and I’ve been in this industry since I
was 17 years old, we wanted to keep our prices the same to
our customers. So we looked at cost cutting – mainly at the
packaging end.”

Vlcek stresses: they’re not skimping on the pizza.
Marco’s has started doing things like using paper cups
instead of plastic. The new ones are cheaper and
biodegradable. Their pizza boxes used to be colorful,
glossy, and not very recyclable.

“Now our boxes, which the industry has said is the most
impressive and highest cost box in the industry, we’ve taken
that and we’ve put new messages on it, with a non-
varnished look.”

Marco’s also slightly reduced the size of its pizza boxes, so
more fit on its distribution trucks. That’s saved transportation
costs – and lots of polluting truck travel. None of this sounds
too sexy. But these efficiencies have saved Marco’s 2.5
million dollars this year.

The cuts they made have been good for the bottom line –
and for the environment.

Industry strategist Joel Makower says there are thousands of
stories like this.

“Once companies squeeze out the waste and inefficiency
and the water, carbon, and energy intensity and the toxicity
of their products, that’s not going to come back as soon as
oil prices drop, as we’ve seen them do, or when the
economy goes bad, as it has. This is a fundamental change
in how business is being done, and this is just the
beginning.”

Makower predicts that companies will continue to innovate
new ways to save money, and that is going to benefit the
environment.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Better Packaging, Bigger Benefits

  • Employees wrap office furniture in blankets as one element of a green shipping method used by Perkins Specialized Transportation to cut carbon emissions. (Photo courtesy of Perkins)

Companies are looking at new ways to
use less packaging and save fuel. It’s all
considered “carbon reduction,” but it comes
down to saving money. Lester Graham reports
on a couple of companies finding some success:

Transcript

Companies are looking at new ways to
use less packaging and save fuel. It’s all
considered “carbon reduction,” but it comes
down to saving money. Lester Graham reports
on a couple of companies finding some success:

Many environmentalists love to hate Wal-Mart. But, in recent years, Wal-Mart has been
encouraging its suppliers to find ways to reduce environmental impacts.

Now, that’s important because Wal-Mart is huge. As its suppliers go green, it’s having a
ripple effect on the suppliers’ suppliers and all their competitors.

So here’s what happens. Companies that come up with ways to reduce environmental
impacts are rewarded. Wal-Mart gives them more store shelf space and promotions.

Rand Waddoups is with Wal-Mart. He says electronics company Hewlitt-Packard took
the challenge to a whole new level.

“They came back with this idea to completely remove the packaging from the laptops that they’re selling us, and instead have a messenger bag that we give the customers to take home with them. In addition to that, it’s Energy Star product, it’s Ross compliant – which is reduction of hazardous substances. It just ended up being a really great laptop.”

It’s not just Wal-Mart and its suppliers that are trying to reduce packaging.

Other manufacturers and shippers are finding ways to get rid of all the cardboard and
styrofoam and plastic wrapping.

The office furniture company Haworth worked with the shipper Perkins Specialized
Transportation. Instead of boxing up chairs and desks with cardboard and styrofoam,
the companies decided to test other ways of shipping. Greg Maiers is the the shipper,
Perkins.

“About a third of their shipments we converted to a blanket-wrapping or using pads to secure the product in decking inside the trailers, as opposed to the way they had been doing it, with cardboard boxes.”

So instead of stacking bulky boxes, they just put the furniture in, put in a wood deck,
and put in another layer on top of that – all cushioned with pads.

The tests came up with three results. One: they didn’t have to buy cardboard boxing.
That made their retail customers happy because they didn’t have to deal with throwing
all that stuff away or trying to recycle it. Two: they could actually fit more office
furniture on the truck, so they didn’t need as many trucks on the road. Three: it does
take more labor to pack in the furniture and wrap it in blankets, stack the decks and so
on, so that cost a little more, but remember, there were fewer trucks, and that savings
more than offset that additional labor cost. So overall, shipping was cheaper.

Greg Maiers says corporate America is learning, and changing.

“Many, many industries are clearly getting the indication that there is an environmental impact that’s going on, there’s a change, and we have to address it. And many, many companies are doing it.”

And a lot of those companies are finding it’s also good for the bottom line.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Protesters Target Pvc

  • Activists want Target to stop carrying PVC plastic products because of potential links with toxins. (photo by Lester Graham)

Polyvinyl chloride and the chemicals used to make it are thought to be
linked to birth defects and cancers. So activists are urging companies
to stop using the plastic. America’s 6th largest retailer Target was
recently handed 10,000 signatures at its annual shareholders
meeting. The petition urges the company to phase out the use of PVC
plastic in the products it sells. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports:

Transcript

Polyvinyl chloride and the chemicals used
to make it are thought by some to be linked to
birth defects and cancers. The petition was
delivered to the annual shareholders meeting.
Lisa Ann Pinkerton has more:


In white hazmat suits and dust masks, about 30 protesters chant on the street in front of the new Target store.
It’s the site of this year’s shareholder meeting
and one of those protesters is Brad Melzer, a biology professor at Lake Erie
College in Ohio. But Melzer’s not shaking a protest sign right now. Instead, he’s trying to keep his infant
son shaded and cool in the noon-day sun. As little Winston lounges in a stroller, sucking on a bottle, Melzer says he’s
here today because he’s read about PVC plastic and its possible toxicity to
children:


“To be honest, I don’t even know if this nipple has PVC in it. He could already be
ingesting these things.”


Protests like this one are happening simultaneously in 200 locations across the country,
but in Cleveland, protesters have turned in a petition with 10,000 signatures urging Target
to stop stocking its shelvesproducts containing polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.


Not too far away from the Melzers, is Doctor Cynthia Bearer of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and she chats with a
woman holding a protest sign reading “Way off Target with Toxic Toys.”


Bearer’s main concern is chemicals called pthalates, which help soften PVC plastic. The
most common is known as DEHP. Bearer says the chemicals may leach from teething
rings, shower curtains and packaging, and put young children at risk:


“Pthalates are known to be endocrine disrupters. They interact with the thyroid
hormone.”


And they can cause abnormalities in infants, she says, including reproductive
difficulties:


“So we can actually measure health effects, particularly on male infants in terms of their
sexual development at the time of birth from exposure to pthalates.”


Like Dr. Bearer and Brad Melzer, some of the protesters are science professionals.
Some are just concerned parents and others are advocates for children. Maureen Swanson is with the Learning Disabilities Association of America. She says the development of children’s brains might be impaired by exposure
to chemicals in PVC. She says even if science can’t pinpoint right now why 1 in 6
children suffer from learning disabilities, something needs to be done. She says the burden on America’s schools is growing:


“The percentage of school funding that has to go to help these kids who have learning
and developmental disabilities, then that impacts the school’s ability to fund other
educational needs.”


Some precautions have been made to reduce exposure to some of the PVC-related chemicals.
The US Food and Drug Administration has advised against using DEHP in medical
devices, and the Environmental Protection Agency has listed it as a probable carcinogen,
but the government doesn’t bar the use of DEHP in any product.


Even without the ban on the chemicals, 53 companies, including Target’s largest competitor, Wal-Mart, have begun phasing
out the products that contain PVC. Target Spokeswoman Carolyn Brookter says her company has some options it’s working on,
but it’s reluctant to set a time table for phasing out PVC. But she says that doesn’t mean that Target isn’t taking the
issue seriously:


“We’re talking to out buyers, we’re talking to our venders and we’re asking them to look
into some alternatives that we have.”


If Target doesn’t move on the PVC issue, new dad Brian Melzer
says he’ll be left with a difficult shopping dilemma:


“I don’t like shopping at Wal-Mart at all. But… if Target continues its practices of not phasing
out PVCs. Yeah, then definitely I would choose one of their competitors, and if it had to
be Wal-Mart, I guess it would have to be Wal-Mart.”


However, at this point, Target Spokeswoman Brookter doesn’t think the company will
lose business on this single issue.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Return to Sender

The fast food and beverage industries spend billions of dollars annually to create an image for their products. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that some of that money would be better spent educating the public about what to do with the leftovers:

Transcript

The fast food and beverage industries spend billions of dollars annually to create an image for their products. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that some of that money would be better spent educating the public about what to do with the leftovers.


I was walking my dog the other day when she found a real treat right in the middle of the road. Some clown had pitched the remains of a Burger King dinner out their car window – fries, burger, napkins, and drink container – the works. And while Jessie couldn’t wait to roll around in the smashed French fries and burger bits, I was wishing I could find the rightful owner and return it.


Since I couldn’t hope to find the culprit, I decided to do the next best thing. I called the nearest Burger King restaurant and asked to speak to the manager. I told her that I had found something that belonged to her store, and asked if someone could please come and pick it up. She wondered exactly what it was, so I told her.


She said, “Just because our name’s on it, doesn’t mean that it’s our responsibility.”


I am quite sure that the employee who made that statement had no idea how profound it really was. From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of the garbage that makes its way into ditches along our roads is either fast food leftovers or beverage containers. The cheap, disposal nature of carryout packaging has made the entire fast food industry possible. The same can be said for the soft drink industry. They both benefit from the disposability of these items, and yet they appear to bear no responsibility for them.


More importantly, they don’t seem to care. And that’s what I find so interesting. The fast food and soft drink industries spend billions of dollars every year on advertising and promotion. They aren’t just selling products – they engage some of the brightest minds in advertising to help sell an image. What’s so astounding is that none of these marketing geniuses has made the connection between that carefully crafted image and what happens to it when it ends up squashed in a ditch or smeared all over the road. It strikes me that this is really bad public relations.


I understand that the very nature of fast food makes a certain amount of disposable packaging necessary. It’s also understood that it isn’t Burger King or McDonalds or Coca-Cola that’s pitching all this trash in the ditch. But the truth is that they aren’t doing much to discourage it, either. And maybe that’s the point.


The whole convenience food industry needs to work on educating the public about responsibly disposing of their packaging. Rather than packing food into bags at the drive-thru window or take-out counter, fast food restaurants should use litterbags instead. Maybe then consumers would actually think before they roll down the window and pitch.


Somewhere along the line both the fast food restaurants and the consumers have accepted the idea that a tremendous amount of garbage and littering is the price we have to pay for all that convenience. It’s time to re-visit that perception.


From here on, when I see a squashed coffee cup, a flattened Coke can or Big Mac wrapper in the street, I think I’ll be calling the advertised owners and asking them to come and pick up their stuff.