Section 1: Introduction and Scope of Study

This study was undertaken at the request of National Consumers League, Washington D. C. They asked for information to use in constructing an educational program for consumers to inform them about the solid waste impact of various packaging options for the products they buy in the supermarket. This report provides that information.

The approach was to select an array of supermarket product categories representative of consumer purchases; to identify within the categories specific products that are offered in a variety of sizes, modes of preparation, or types of packaging. At the suggestion of National Consumers League, we started with the Nielson Top 40 Product Categories List. In addition, we surveyed supermarkets in the Lansing, Michigan area, and we found a number of product categories that should be included that were not on the Nielson list; fresh meat and produce are two examples. There were also some categories on the Nielson list that we believe should not be represented on our list; cigarettes are one example. Some of the Nielson categories were too broad for our purposes, so we divided them according to our needs. As a result, we are reporting on 40 categories of products, represented by 252 products.

Within each product category we chose a range of products that would represent the variety of choices of packaging available in the supermarket. Our objective was to include all combinations of packaging that might result from purchases of product based on life style choices not necessarily related to minimizing packaging solid waste. These choices might include economics of price, economics of size (quantity of net contents), dietary considerations, taste preference, etc. Thus, the consumer can know the packaging solid waste impact of most of the purchase choices available.

The amount of packaging for each product was determined. This was, in fact, a determination of the amount of solid waste resulting from each package type, kind of material, or combination of package type and material. Then, the products were grouped into two "market baskets"; market basket 1 is the group of products using the least packaging, and market basket 2 is the group of products using the most packaging. From these groupings we determined what packaging is associated with "most" and "least" amount of packaging used for supermarket products.

The amount of packaging was determined on both a weight basis, and a volume basis. The weight basis is the easier of the two to determine, and is the easier one for most people to visualize. The volume basis refers to the volume of the solid packaging material that surrounds the product. For some materials and packages, such as paper wraps, it can be determined by measuring the length, width and thickness of the material. For other materials and packages, such as plastic bottles, it is necessary to determine the volume of material (plastic) by measuring the amount of water displaced by the bottle emptied of product. Since the volume determination involves a number of measurements of different kinds, it must be assumed that this method is less precise than is the weight method that requires only a single direct weighing of the material. When the volume has been determined, the amount of compressibility of the package in a landfill is not known, so the effect of the volume is not known with any precision. A plastic wrap will compress to a very small volume, not much more than its own intrinsic volume. A plastic bottle will be much less compressible because of its shape, thickness and stiffness. The void volume of the bottle in a landfill may be a much higher ratio than the void volume for a plastic wrap. The volume of the material is of interest to some researchers now, and it may become of greater interest in the future. Therefore, we have included it in the study.

Once the weight and volume of the packaging (material) were determined, we calculated the weight and volume of packaging material used per unit amount of product. We made this calculation on three

different bases: 1) per gram of product for solids or per milliliter of product for liquids, 2) per manufacturer’s recommended use, and 3) per standard use. A discussion of these bases follows:

Per gram or per milliliter - This provides a fundamental product based standard for comparison, which may be of interest to some users of this report.

Per manufacturer's recommended use - Foods, especially, and some other products as well, will carry a manufacturer's recommendation for the amount that constitutes a "use" or serving. Probably most consumers use this recommendation as a starting point for their use behavior. National Consumers League has said that they believe this is so. Indeed, for foods, the Food and Drug Administration and the U. S. Department of Agriculture have developed a great deal of tabulated data on the "serving size" for many foods. We assume the manufacturer’s recommendation for number of servings for foods is based on data developed by the government agencies, or on data of equal validity developed by themselves.

Per standard use (food) - Consumers adjust the amount they use for a serving, at least part of the time. It is also true that the recommended serving size varies in nutritional value, such as calories. For this reason, we established a "standard use", or "standard serving" that uses 100 calories as the basis. For this, we have recalculated the amounts from the calorie count given by the manufacturer to a calorie count of 100. Thus, if the manufacturer’s serving is 100 grams with 130 calories, the "standard serving" of 100 calories would be 77 grams.

Per standard use (other than food) - Most non-food products do not have a manufacturer’s recommended number of uses, or quantity of product to be used for a single use. For these we established a standard use based on an ad hoc study among our group to measure a reasonable use size. While this was not done by any designed experiment with proven validity over all consumers, it was done in an unbiased manner, and the same standard was used in all applications, so the comparison of packaging material per use within a product category is based on a constant value.

The specific method for determining the standard use is described in the report section for each product category.

For almost all product categories, the "most packaging used" or "least packaging used" assignment was the same for both volume and weight determinations. For a few categories the assignment would be different for the volume determination than for the weight determination. When this happened, we made the assignment based on the weight determination because it is the more reliable of the two, as described above.

Section 2: Market Basket Comparison and Summary.

This study compared the amount of packaging material used on a volume and weight basis for 40 product groups containing 252 products. The data collected on each product category allowed for the selection of the packaging that used the least packaging material and the package that used the most packaging material. The products that used the least packaging material are combined through addition in a market basket (market basket 1). Market basket 2 is a combination of products that used the most packaging materials. Figure 1 depicts this data in a bar chart. Table 1 summarizes the two market baskets.

The products selected in market basket 1 used less packaging material than those products selected in market basket 2. The volume of packaging material per use in market basket 2 was 7.5 times the volume in market basket 1. The packaging weight per use in market basket 2 was 15.2 times the weight in market basket 1. The volume of packaging per gram of product and the packaging weight per gram of product were 4.1 and 5.7 times, respectively, as large in market basket 2 as in market basket 1. The comparisons based on the number of uses or servings are the most relevant in educating consumers to make choices that reduce generation of packaging waste.

Table 2 shows the product/packaging systems that used the least packaging material and the most packaging material for each product group in the study. These values were combined to create market basket 1 and market basket 2 summarized above. The bold data in the tables throughout the report represent the product/package systems that used the least material, and the italicized data represent the product/package systems that used the most packaging material.

The packaging systems that most often appeared in market basket 1 include paper/plastic/foil laminate pouches, single low-density polyethylene (LDPE) bags, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, and plastic pouches. Market basket 2 was primarily composed of packages that used multiple components in the packaging system. These systems include paperboard cartons with internal plastic sealed bags, amber and clear glass jars with paper labels, expanded polystyrene trays (PS) with plastic wrap, and corrugated boxes with plastic/foil pouches inside. Table 3, Figure 1, and Figure 2 show the primary packaging materials found in each market basket.