Packing it in? Changing our approach to food packaging
Packing it in? Changing our approach to food packaging
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Welcome
Welcome
You are invited to join our Little Food Festival Citizen Science Project. We urgently need to change our food system so that it becomes more sustainable. We especially need to reduce food waste and food packaging. To do this, we need to collect data about our food packaging waste and based on that data, we need to come up with some new ideas for food packaging. This is where you step in!
We want you to help Victoria reduce household packaging by joining a citizen science investigation into household food packaging waste. You are invited to take on a meaningful and active role as a citizen scientist. You have the opportunity to engage in research and promote your recommendations to homes and industry for a more sustainable future. Everyone can participate in the audit.
At the end of the investigation, based on the cumulative data on our Tally Page, you are invited to make a Digital Story with recommendations to industry about ways to take action to reduce household food packaging - both non-recycling (landfill) and recycling waste. To read more about the challenge and see the instructions about what you need to do click here or use the website Table of Contents and head to the Challenge Instructions.
Whilst we encourage entries from anyone, to be eligible for a competition prize you need to live in Victoria and either be
a primary school student
a secondary school student
Please note: You can enter as a household. If you are a Victorian household and decide to compete, the age of the eldest household child will determine the category to be eligible for a prize.
Entrants from both school groups who create the Digital Story judged as the most insightful, informed and effectively communicated recommendations for industry to reduce household food packaging will win a $100 gift voucher from Readings. Runners up will win a copy of Alice Zaslavksy's soon to be released book, In Praise of Veg (Alice is also one of our judges).
Final entries are due by September 25th, so get started as soon as possible so that you have time to carry out your household food packaging waste audit and make your digital story.
You can find the competition terms and conditions here.
Why focus on food packaging?
Why focus on food packaging?
According to Sustainability Victoria, “Australians throw away around 1.9 million tonnes of packaging each year – enough to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground nine times over. Packaging takes a lot of energy, water and other natural resources to produce, and packaging waste pollutes our air, water and soil.”
This is the main reason we want to focus on food packaging. We want you to help us meet Australia's national goal of reducing food packaging (this includes drinks packaging).
The following information will be helpful to you especially when you are planning your digital story.
Reducing food waste across the whole of the food system is a key goal for Australia. This is because food waste impacts negatively on our environment. Food waste can end up in landfill and can break down to create more greenhouse gases. In fact, food waste contributes to more than five percent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Wasting food also means wasting the resources that are used to grow and process, package and transport our food. Each year we waste around 7.3 million tonnes of food. According to Sustainability Victoria, this equals about 298kg per person - that’s about the same as five bags of groceries. Because of the impact of food waste on our environment, our Australian Government is on a mission to halve food waste by 2030. This will involve working to reduce food waste at every stage in the food system - from the paddock to the plate.
Food packaging is important in reducing food waste because it helps give food a much longer shelf life (and it can also help make food safer). But food packaging can also create problems, such as plastics that can end up in our waterways and oceans and can take hundreds of years to break down – if at all. Because we are spending more time at home, this has had a big impact on increasing our household waste. We are relying more on food deliveries which means we are using more plastic bags and take away containers. A large portion of our household waste is food packaging, both non-recyclable (landfill) and recyclable waste. According to the Australian Council of Recycling, households are throwing out about 20 per cent more waste (non-recyclable and recyclables) in our kerbside bins than we were pre-coronavirus. The challenge ahead is for us to find a way to either reduce our use of packaging or find sustainable alternatives without increasing food waste. Reducing household food packing waste takes a community effort, across the food system - from the paddock to the plate. We all have a role to play - industry, government, community and us - to build a more sustainable future.
Extra resources
We have included a list of web resources for further research. We also have an online glossary that you can go to if you need to find out the meaning of a particular word or phrase. Click here to go to the resources page.
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