Plastic packaging has an evil twin

Just three countries – the United States, China and Brazil – are responsible for a staggering 44.6 percent of all the world’s plastic packaging, the majority of it wrapped around food, according to a paper released last month. But most of that packaging is torn off in other countries, making the US, China and Brazil packaging exporters. Twelve billion tonnes of plastic packaging will be clogging up landfill by 2050.

The flood of packaging demands resources, causes pollution and creates severe waste problems. There are global efforts to stem the tide. But along the way an important question seems to have been overlooked: why use packaging in the first place?