Food Packaging - orig. 08/20/05

I asked my bank to remove me from all mailing lists that they sell. I also contacted my credit card company and asked them to do the same thing. The majority of junk mail I currently receive is offers for credit cards so hopefully this should help reduce the volume of junk mail that I receive.

I am going to repost the link to a site that can help you opt-out of direct mail: http://opt-out.cdt.org. I think that is environmentally sound to try and reduce direct mail.

I eventually heard back from Brown Cow in regards to their organic food line and packaging:

Thank you for taking the time to write and share your comments and concerns. We always appreciate hearing from our Brown Cow yogurt customers.

We originally chose the High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) #2 cups because we were trying to use the most recyclable cups nationwide. However, our customers were complaining bitterly that the HDPE #2 cups were not recyclable in their area.

We decided to take a closer look into this issue and discovered that even in the areas that were receiving HDPE #2 plastic, our cups were still going into landfill because they were a "wide mouthed" #2. The wide mouthed containers are not recycled because they have a different melting point than the #2 plastic with the bottle necks. (Lids are always made with #2 HDPE because it is the only plastic pliable enough to be used as a lid.)

We decided to "go back to the drawing board" and reevaluate our cups. We discovered that the polypropylene (PP) #5 cups use less resin to manufacture than do the HDPE #2. The PP #5 cups are also more efficient to manufacture as this plastic flows better and there is far less waste product. The #5 cup consumes less energy and fewer resources to produce. We have seen far less shipping damage as well as the #5 cup is a stiffer cup. Since our #2 cups were not being recycled at all and ending up in landfill, we were impressed by the fact that the #5 cup actually takes up less landfill room per gram weight than the #2 cup.

What excited us most about the PP#5 cup, however, is the opportunity for eventual recycling. Many innovative companies are researching the uses of recycled plastics in fencing, housing materials, etc. As the demand for recycled #5 increases, more recycling centers will be interested in accepting #5 plastic. We have found a recycling plant that will accept polypropylene #5 cups from Brown Cow for recycling (they, however, will not deal directly with the public). We encourage our customers to send us their Brown Cow Yogurt cups and we will forward them on for recycling. To be accepted for recycling, cups must be washed clean and dried before shipping to Brown Cow.

We have decided to drop our Organic line and we have always been proud to offer organic options to our consumers, and we first started with our whole milk line before extending it to the other fat levels. It was our hope that our organic products would grow in popularity and would take over the lion's share of our production. Surprisingly, our regular all natural products - especially our whole milk 'Cream Top' - continue to be in huge demand, dramatically outweighing the demand for organic. As a small brand, with limited production capacity, it has been difficult to keep up with the growth of our all natural products while maintaining the much smaller organic lines. And, our organic sales have actually been declining because of the duplication between the two lines. Brown Cow simply isn't a big enough brand to offer 2 Whole Milk strawberries - one all natural and one organic. We were literally splitting production runs among too many small orders, which is highly unprofitable and threatens are ability to survive in the competitive business world and keep offering great yogurts. We therefore have discontinued our organic products...for the time being.

It is our plan to offer organic yogurts again. We simply believe that organic is the wave of the future and is the right thing to do. We will be able to do that when the demand for organic is large enough to support the amount of yogurt we need to make from week to week. In the meantime, we will continue to put out our legendary Cream Top yogurt, made with 100% natural ingredients, including milk from farms that pledge not to use artificial growth hormones.

Thank you again for sharing your comments with us here at Brown Cow.

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the response and once again you can see the complexities of the issues we are discussing.

Can wasteful packaging be avoided (in regards to gathering of resources, production, shipping and disposal)? If so how?

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Here are a couple of good links posted by Sustainable Girl in regards to energy consumption. I really like the Mr. Electricity site because the guy is a character. Twenty Things You Can Do to Conserve Energy also contains at least 20 helpful suggestions. I know that in my town Hope Source, formerly KCAC, offers free insulation services for housing as well weather stripping and what not.