Bags, packaging and plastic packaging: a green family
The pink family is made up of 5 people and 1 dog. They attend the supermarket 4 times a week. A month around 130 plastic bags and packaging are occupied a month. Equivalent to 26 per person and 1560 per year. In Mexico City a total of 125 thousand tons of bags, packaging and plastic packaging is wasted. Plastic bags take between 150 and 500 years to degrade since they are composed of oil derived materials.
Theoretical framework of the problem:
The problem is that there are too many products with plastic bags and too much use of it. Almost all food products, whether pasta, rice, cereals, bars, lettuce, ham, cheese, etc. are packaged in plastic. In the Super to grab the vegetables and fruits you have to grab bags, and once the purchase is made, the products are put in the second time in plastic bags. The extremely easy -to -break plastic bags, which makes sodas or heavy things, break and have another or put two bags or put two bags. Plastic garbage bags are almost never reused, so there is more pollution.
Plastic bags began as a novelty in 1970. Around 1 billion are manufactured every year. The first plastic bags were manufactured in 1965 in a Swedish company called Celloplast. Thanks to that the plastic bags replaced the fabric bags. In 1979 they were introduced to the United States and the rest of the world, thanks to the fact that 80% of the product were from the USA. In 1982 the largest supermarket chains in the United States changed their fabric bags for plastic.
In 1997 the first plastic bag was found in the sea. In 2002 Bangladesh was the first country in the world to ban plastic bags. In 2011 it was established through a study that are produced and around 11 million plastic bags per minute in the world are consumed. In 2017 Kenya banned plastic bags. The manufacturing process of plastic bags is as follows:
- First the oil is extracted from the ground where it reaches a factory and is transformed into different steps.
- Then, it goes through extrusion, where it is mixed with several dyes and chemicals.
- Then it goes through the impression, an optional step, in which a logo or an image is normally printed.
- Subsequently, it goes through a process called cut, in which a machine is prepared in which the plastic cuts with the exact stockings.
- Once this finished process is packed to be sent to customers.
My strategy is to investigate well and influence people to be able to implement this method and to make a change in the ecosystem and society. Jan.OR.A. This Zero Waste system already exists. There are many stores and many markets in which this technique is implemented. Most stores started thanks to vegans, since they do not sell meat or chicken, or some type of animal product. In Canada this technique is also implemented. REFED is an ecological company which forces companies to do a bit of Zero Waste since around $ 18 is spent.2 billion waste per year.
I will investigate the cost per product and by bag and reusable containers, see how the method and its properties work well and finally I will investigate if there are already existing system of the system.
To develop this project first investigate if there are already existing stores with this "Zero Waste" system.Then I did surveys in the Rosado family to see if they are interested in getting involved in the project and in the change of the environment. The store where I’m going to focus is called Zero Waste Mexico.
What do I want to achieve?
What I want or I would like to achieve is to eliminate or reduce the amount of plastic in my family. I would also like us to change our perspective and that we realize how bad the bags, packaging and plastic packaging are.
In Mexico City there are several stores that eliminate plastic or minimize its use, these stores are Zero Market Mexico, Half and Half and Natural State MX. My goal is to reduce the use of plastic bags in my house, whether by edible products, super and garbage bags.
Recycle 1 ton of bags, packaging and plastic packaging costs $ 4000 USD. This recycling process is quite expensive, so it is not used very common. In 2015 a total of 322 million euros were spent. By 2020 it is expected that a total of 560,000 million euros will be spent.
9% of them are recycled, 12% are burned and 79% are accumulated.
One of the reasons why they take between 120 and 500 years to degrade is for the material derived materials that contain. The same materials are the ones that take the time of 150 years or half a century. There are a total of 100,000 deaths of turtles a year caused by suffocation or swallow of plastic bags. It is used between 60 and 100 barrels of oil and 1 million bags per minute are used.For their solution there are several options:
- Buy Mason Jars or reusable glass containers.
- Go to Zero Waste stores where you buy in bulk.
- Use wood utensils since they are ecological.
- Use fabric bags to store fruits and vegetables.
- Use fabric or green bags to load your purchases home.
- Use biodegradable dog bags.
- Use bee wax paper instead of using aluminum and plastic paper.
- Buy refractory and glass toppers.
- Buy the vegetable and fresh fruits so that they do not come in a separate plastic bag.
Buy the meats somewhere where they can wrap it on paper without being plastic. In the previous table we can observe the amount of plastic bags used per month. Week per week.
It can be clearly observed how the number was decreased every week. This is thanks to the fact that everything is bought in the first week. Vegetables, pasta, rice, fruits, frozen things, etc. The second week is bought what was missing the first week for the following. The last two weeks have a total of less than the first two since in those two weeks whatever is needed and what is necessary and what is necessary. This project could not be done in this period of time, since my potatoes agree with the idea, but I had many questions at that time. They are willing to do it and it is a very good idea.
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