Plastic Food Packaging: Trade-offs and choices in your local supermarket

Think back to your latest supermarket visit: what sort of fruit, vegetables or meat did you buy - and how much of it was wrapped in plastic? With 78 million tonnes of plastic packaging produced each year, the answer for most people will be 'an awful lot.' So why is there so much plastic packaging, how is it made and disposed, what environmental impact does it have, and what can we as consumers do about it?

We'll answer all these questions and more in this episode with our amazing guest Dr Rachel Rothman, Co-Director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures at the University of Sheffield. Together, we will break down this complex issue, discuss the trade-offs of plastic packaging and food waste, and figure out the steps that we can take while shopping to reduce plastic pollution and combat climate change!

Learn more about the Grantham Centre's work on plastics: https://grantham.sheffield.ac.uk/research-projects/redefine-single-use-plastic/, https://grantham.sheffield.ac.uk/research-projects/many-happy-returns-plastic/.

References: https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/the-new-plastics-economy-rethinking-the-future-of-plastics

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