Packaging’s Role in Reducing Food Waste

The American Institute for Packaging and the Environment (AMERIPEN) has published a brochure, Reducing Fresh Food Waste: The Role of Packaging, to help create a better understanding of packaging’s role in reducing food waste.

The free brochure helps explain the role of packaging in a sustainable food supply.

Americans throw away 36 million tons of food each year, valued at $162 billion, the trade group says.

While packaging plays a key role in preventing waste, a Sealed Air study published last month found that American consumers:

• Associate packaging more with safety than waste;
• See discarded packaging as worse for the environment than food waste and food that has minimal or no packaging being more environmentally friendly; and
• Will often behave contrary to their beliefs (50 percent rewrap food into new packaging when they are home).