Read'n'Seed 5: Fourth quarter and Final Review of "Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World

For the last quarter of my book I covered eleven chapters, pages 108-157. The main topics of this quarter were on bioplastics, Ideas of Global reviving on the economy and tips for what individuals can do. I'm going to break it up into 3 sections based on the main topics.

Bioplastics:
Bioplastics are plastic packaging made out of plant materials that can decompose. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been promoting biofineries as a national renewable resource strategy. Biofineries are mills that produce fuels, power, heat, etc from biomass. There are 3 categories of bioplastic engineering in the U.S.:converting plant starches and sugars into plastics, producing plastics inside microorganisms via fermentation, and genetically modifying crops such as corn and rapeseed so that they actually GROW PLASTIC! I'm not sure how I feel about that one. Bioplastics look like a good solution on the surface but we would need a lot of corn to produce the 30 million tons of plastic polymers consumed in the U.S. every year. Agriculture will have to change radically from how it is now. The author doesn't believe that bioplastics will fix the packaging problem. He writes, "rather than changing the core of our convenience-oriented society by offering deep systemic solutions, bioplastics seem to offer a plant based techno-fix to our existing consumption habits."

Global Revival of Local Economies:
This part of the book was about the consumers role in packaging. Getting coffee consumes up to 100 million throwaway cups, lids, and sleeves in a day in the U.S. alone. Just by using a reusable cup, you can reduce the amount of energy, water use, air emissions, water pollution and solid waste by 85-99%! People can also help their economies just by the food they buy.
Farm-in-a-box or Community-supported-agriculture, is a movement that unites consumers with nearby farmers with the concept of locally grown, seasonal produce. People pay an advanced agreed upon fee to farmers before the season begins, and in return, during the season, those who pay receive fruits and vegetables each week. It is a good approach to food distribution, consumption and packaging. Another way to look at food is through something called Food Miles. This Measures the distance an item has traveled between the field and dinner table. Today, the average a food item travels in the U.S. is 2,000 miles. The next solution is called The Buy local Campaign. This is an organized national coalition in the U.S. These campaigns address the issues surrounding faraway food production. One campaign challenged people to buy $10 worth of produce from their state farmers each week because this could pump $100 million into the regional farm economy.

What can you do?
Though we can't limit how much packaging companies use, we can do some things to minimize damage on a daily basis. We can support local farmers, carry reusable mugs and water bottles, take time to eat rather than take out, have cloth shopping bags,and write letters to companies to reduce. You can minimize take out packaging by staying at a restaurant instead of eating on the go. Establish a reusable packaging policy in your home, and last but not least, be clear about your ecological footprint.

This book goes over how much packaging waste we have. It discusses the waste not only from the packaging itself, but the costs in energy and resources that we use to make this packaging. The author gives solutions to improve upon the packaging problem and discusses not only how companies can save packaging, but how we as consumers can also save packaging and thus resources.

The three most significant things I learned from this book were:

• How much plastic the U.S. alone wastes.
• The U.S. seems to care the least about environmental impacts of packaging compared to other countries.
• There are some packaging reforms out there, we just need to improve and implement them.

Since I live in the U.S. this book means a lot to me, because our country uses the most waste and seems relatively uneducated about it. I didn't know how much waste packaging created. Or maybe I did, but I never really thought much about it. Seeing pictures of rivers filled with plastic and reading about all the resources we use to make packaging is very eye-opening. It's also frustrating, because you want to change that, but as a consumer can only start with small steps to try to contribute to a bigger change. I would recommend this book, because it is not very long but it contains a lot of information. It not only informs readers about packaging waste, but gives tips about how to minimize the waste. As the author said earlier in the book, it shouldn't be about picking the lesser of two evils. So the next time you're asked Paper or Plastic, I hope you say neither, and pull out a reusable bag.