What is the impact of packaging on the environment?

Answer 1

Excessive packaging leads to more material to be disposed of, more resources used for transportation (excessive packaging=higher weight=more gas), and more resources used in producing the packaging material (power, heat, etc...). -From a Packaging Engineer The answer above is very true. excessive packaging leads to higher usage of material meaning more resources consumed such as plants that create oxygen. I work for a packaging company and we try to work with customers who have a product to make sure that they are using only enough material to get the job done. This in turn saves them money and helps reduce the effects on our planet.

Answer 2

All consumer products have a carbon footprint. That is the amount of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions that it takes to grow, or mine, or produce, or manufacture, and then to package and transport it till it ends up in your house.

It's the difference between buying a plastic pack of carrots that were grown on the other side of the world, and pulling a carrot out of your garden where you grew it yourself.

So "wasteful consumer products" have that sort of problem. That hot-dog warmer that seemed such a good buy, but which you now never use, has made a small contribution to global warming, by adding a little more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. And the million other people who bought one have done the same!

Answer 3

It has an impact because you need to burn fossil fuels to keep the equipment going. If you're going to make 1 tonne of metal, you'll burn fossil fuels and they will produce 3 tonnes of greenhouse gases and warm the globe.

Answer 4

Plastic bags and plastic bottles - CO2 emissions during their lifetimeA number of people have asked about the implications of using plastic bags on the personal carbon footprint as well as on the environment in general. There are some comparisons between paper bags and plastic bags available which clearly show that it all depends on how many times these plastic or paper bags are being used.

Littering is probably the severest problem related to plastic bags. Nevertheless let's now have a look at the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the production and incineration of plastic bags.

The carbon footprint of plastic (LDPE or PET, poyethylene) is about 6 kg CO2 per kg of plastic. If you know the weight of your plastic bags, you can multiply it with the number of plastic bag you are using per year. Then you can easily calculate the carbon dioxide emitted by your own usage of plastic bags. See below for some background information.

• The production of 1 kg of polyethylene (PET or LDPE), requires the equivalent of 2 kg of oil for energy and raw material. Polyethylene PE ist the most commonly used plastic for plastic bags.
• Burning 1 kg of oil creates about 3 kg of carbon dioxide. In other words: Per kg of plastic, about 6 kg carbon dioxide is created during production and incineration.
• A plastic bag has a weight in the range of about 8 g to 60 g depending on size and thickness. For the further calculation, it now depends on which weight for a plastic bag you actually use. A common plastic carrying bag in our household had a weight between 25 g and 40 g. So I took the average of 32.5 g.

Take the above relation between kg plastics and kg of carbon dioxide, and you get about 200 g carbon dioxide for 32.5 g of plastic, which is the equivalent of the average plastic carrying bag in our household. Or in other words: For 5 plastic bags you get 1 kg of CO2.

Answer 5

Packaging uses up world resources, that will end up being thrown into the rubbish bin which will clog up the environment with rubbish.

Answer 6

Most transport runs by burning fossil fuels (gasoline or diesel). Burning emits carbon dioxide which increases the greenhouse gases and is causing global warming.