Plastic in our Food and Water

Plastic in our Food and Water

I don’t remember any plastic in my childhood. Our toys were made of metal and wood. There were no plastic bottles.  Soft drinks came in returnable bottles with a deposit of two cents each. When Coca Cola made a delivery to a grocery store, the empty bottles that had been returned were collected and sent to bottlers who washed and refilled the bottles. Milk also was sold in glass bottles.  I was in high school before waxed paper cartons appeared as milk containers.

This was a time before the throwaway economy. I suspect rising labor costs drove companies to disposables.  It saved the companies money, but as the articles below show, the external costs of disposables are far greater than the cost savings of the companies.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/09/todays-special-grilled-salmon-laced-with-plastic-flesh/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=food-for-thought-2019-09-15 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/ 

https://graphics.reuters.com/ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC/0100B275155/index.html