"Meat candy" does not sound very enticing, at least not to me.
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
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Japan is the worst for this. They are obsessed with individually wrapping everything. You want to buy a box of cookies? Plastic packaging for the whole thing. Plastic tray that helps separate and display each individual cookie, so less than 50% of the space is actually used.. And each cookie has its own plastic packaging.
I didn't go and buy M&Ms but I wouldn't be surprised if each one was in its own sealed plastic.
You're not kidding. I went to a local grocery store when I stayed in japan and it was the same with a lot of vegetables and fruits too. My local Korean market in the US also has a lot of that.
This blew my fucking mind. Went to a BIG ASS Don Quixote (for anyone not familiar with Japan: it's like a Walmart crossed with the dollar store crossed with a shady store run in a tourist trap where there's 1.5 ft of walking space between crap) and they had a produce section on par with my California Walmart, but EVERYTHING was wrapped in plastic. Individual apples? Individual small bunches (like 5-7) of grapes? Carrots? individually wrapped plastic bags. A few of the items came in larger packs wrapped together, but none were anywhere near a "family size" you'd see here in the US, and even that often feels like too much plastic being used.
Getting a box of pocky or hello panda also made me feel so goddamn wasteful.
And I know it's not Japanese but KINDER is doing this shit with their Joy bars and similar now and it's not ok
For anyone not aware, you're 100 percent spot on with your description. I went to like 3 of them including the absolutely massive ones and it's sorta surreal.
Although they shouldn't use that much plastic we also gotta keep in kind that they separate ALL of their trash and recycle more or less all of it as well. I stayed at an air bnb and like 90 percent of the plastic we ended up using was recyclable and chucked in the proper bins.
Quite a few east Asian countries unfortunately. The Asian grocery store down the street is probably 50% plastic wrap by weight. .
On an American note, I recall buying compostable Keurig pods in bulk from a company that advertised how comparing is good for the environment. I had previously bought them in 12 pod batches which came in one resealable plastic bag. I received a box of 72 individually plastic wrapped pods. I emailed them to check to see if maybe those were made off industrially compostable plastic. Nope.
Also looking at my kids' string cheese being wrapped and then individually wrapped makes me cringe. I have to find another solution for that.
I guess that last part would depend on how picky your kids are.
https://nourishingjoy.com/homemade-string-cheese/
Personally, I'd be like "fuck that, mom. I'm just not eating lunch today." Except without the "fuck" part.
Do yourself a favor and get a cheap espresso maker and just fill the entire cup and skip the plastic pods
Just use normal coffee or what I do is a small scoop of espresso then top it up with coffee. Makes a better brew than the shitty pods and no micro plastics
Make your own cheese strings. Get some decent quality mozzarella find the "grains" then cut them in line with em. And just reuse a freezer bag. It tastes better and your not killing the enviorment
The compostable pods are not plastic...or at least not fossil fuel based plastic. The pod itself along with the grounds goes right into yard waste. The pods that I do buy surprisingly come to about the same price I would pay for beans. My parents did give me a coffee pot but that is more for when I have guests. I'm the only one in the house that drinks coffee and it's generally only two cups a day.
I'll look into making my own cheese strings. Seems like it might be pretty simple.
Technically the pods are compostable but that needs to be heated to break down so if you live in a large city that does industrial composting it should be ok, but still probably produces micro/nano plastics. Where I live it's all naturally done.
Same thing is said about the PLA that I use in my 3d printer but has been shown that stuff don't break down naturally as ya would think
Good mozzarella is kinda squishy unlike the crappy bars that are sold beside cheddar/marbled bricks
Unfortunately the cheese inside the plastic wrap is going to be far worse for the environment than the couple grams of plastic surrounding it. The bigger zero-waste win would be to get them hooked on something plant based instead.