BY ALEXANDRA ZISSU
Picking the right wrap remains a conundrum. Plastic sandwich bags never biodegrade, and their chemicals may migrate into food. Nevertheless, “Plastic bag manufacturing has become so incredibly efficient—the volume they do is so enormous—that the energy required to produce them is low,” explains Vincent Cobb, founder and president of Reusablebags.com. Waxed paper doesn’t pose health risks, and it’s made from a renewable resource. But the manufacturing process is less efficient and it’s hard to ensure the pulp isn’t coming from old-growth forests.
The greenest solution is to pack gooey sandwiches in reusable containers and less drippy ones in reusable bags. The Container Store sells a reusable Sandwich Stay Fresh Container ($2.99; containerstore.com), and Cobb’s site sells organic cotton produce bags starting at $2.95, plus a reusable replacement for the ubiquitous brown paper bag, the Acme Bags recycled cotton lunch bag ($6.95).
What they are: Pouches of paper coated with moisture-resistant wax. The wax is generally petroleum-based paraffin, though some companies are using vegetable waxes. Raw material source: trees (it’s rare to find post-consumer recycled paper in food-grade products); petroleum/ vegetable wax. Energy used in production: At an estimated 3. 2 kilowatt-hours (k Wh) per pound, paper requires more energy than plastic to manufacture—plus the wax. Health: No known issues; the U.K. Food Standards Agency says the amount of
wax migrating into food is within acceptable daily intake levels set by the European Union and World Health Organization. Disposal: Non-food-soiled waxed paper is recyclable in some cities (like Sacramento), but the petroleum-based coating renders it un-recyclable in others (like New York). Waxed paper will, however, degrade in a backyard compost pile at about the same rate as leaves. General environmental impact: Deforestation results in habitat loss; it’s hard to discern whether paper came from well-managed or endangered forests.
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