Pack it up
I recently bought a new chain online for my son’s bike.
When it arrived I opened the padded post-bag and pulled out another ziplock bag. Inside that was a plastic case and inside that was the chain…wrapped in a plastic wrapper.
As I held this almost indestructible steel chain in my hand and looked at the four layers of plastic packaging that “protected” it on the journey from a local warehouse to my house, my heart sank.
There’s a helplessness that comes with buying things, particularly online. No matter how thoughtfully we choose the product we can’t control the packaging required to get it from the warehouse to our house.
About half of the seven million tons of packaging we use each year in Australia ends up in landfill, and plastics by themselves are even worse – more than 80% of our plastic packaging is just thrown out.
Throwing out packaging generates a kind of double-negative-vicious-circle effect – as well as breaking down into microplastics or emitting methane in landfills our single-use packaging habit means we need to produce new packaging to replace the old packaging requiring yet more fossil fuels, fibre, water and more energy.
Online grocery and meal kit services are some of the biggest offenders when it comes to throw-away packaging and it’s one of the areas we’ve worked hardest on to reduce at Fair Food.
This is why we reuse our cardboard boxes, coolers, pouches and ice bottles, why we introduced home compostable produce and bulk food bags, why we were founding retailers for Schulz milk in glass, why we use refillable soap containers from Dirt and Dr Planet and why we even started our own fizzy drink cylinder swap service.
If you return a Fair Food cardboard box, cooler, ice bottle, refillable glass milk bottles, soap container or Fair Fizz cylinder for just one reuse, your carbon impact for that piece of packaging is reduced by half! Four times and you’re cutting it by 80%.
It seems so simple, why doesn’t everyone do it you ask?
It’s the logistics – all the collecting, returning and sorting costs money which most companies don’t want to pay – it’s cheaper just to make new packaging.
This is why two years ago we introduced a one dollar Packaging Levy on every order.
We knew people really wanted to do something to reduce the amount of packaging and pollution they were generating and we knew they were willing to pay a little bit to cover the extra logistics.
The Packaging Levy also contributed to the higher costs of compostable bags, cardboard coolers and pouches and helped us keep working on new ways to reduce our packaging impact.
Two years on and like everything the cost of labour and the prices of our special packaging has gone up and so this week we’re increasing our Packaging Levy to two dollars.
We just wanted to let you know that was happening and why.
If you have any thoughts about packaging or the levy email us at info@ceresfairfood.org.au
There is a season….
Lauren Mueller‘s explorations into food security led her into learning more about the magic of fermentation and pickling.
She became enthralled in the process and intrigued by its amazing health benefits and after doing it a while she started sharing her knowledge and passion with others.
Lauren’s hands-on Preserving the Season’s Harvest workshop teaches you how to turn your excess produce into jams, pastes, pickles, preserves and marmalades in a very hands-on way.
It’s happening at CERES Brunswick East May 10th, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Find more info here.
And if it helps to get you pickling use the PRESERVE$10OFF code to get $10 off.
Have a great week
Chris
