Meat was sold in wax paper (butcher paper) for years before switching to plastic. Yes, plastic is superior in pretty much every non-environmental aspect, but waxed paper is hardly an impossible leap. Many smaller shops still use it today.
Beer is sold in both cans and glass bottles, while still remaining cheaper than water in many places. How is beer able to remain cheap in a glass bottle but premade soup stock would not? Yes, glass bottle would increase shipping costs due to volume/weight/breakage, but I think the significance of this is greatly overstated.
If beer can stay out of a plastic bottle while remaining cheap the other liquids can as well.
The epoxy used in cans (and inside paper containers) may not be any better for you but it would be a enormous decrease in quantity of plastic compared to pure plastic containers.
Humorously, waxed paper is generally a modified parrafin, a petroleum product that often contains some plastic to change how it polymerizes. Overall not much better than the tetrapaks.
You could use a plant based wax though.
On the subject of packaging costs: I wouldn’t use can prices to compare the cost of something like a tetrapak. That’s an extremely cheap option that doesn’t have anything to compare it to really. If there wasn’t a pressure issue I’m sure they’d sell beer and soda in cardboard plastic hybrids too in order to reduce cost.
Meat was sold in wax paper (butcher paper) for years before switching to plastic. Yes, plastic is superior in pretty much every non-environmental aspect, but waxed paper is hardly an impossible leap. Many smaller shops still use it today.
Beer is sold in both cans and glass bottles, while still remaining cheaper than water in many places. How is beer able to remain cheap in a glass bottle but premade soup stock would not? Yes, glass bottle would increase shipping costs due to volume/weight/breakage, but I think the significance of this is greatly overstated.
If beer can stay out of a plastic bottle while remaining cheap the other liquids can as well.
The epoxy used in cans (and inside paper containers) may not be any better for you but it would be a enormous decrease in quantity of plastic compared to pure plastic containers.
Humorously, waxed paper is generally a modified parrafin, a petroleum product that often contains some plastic to change how it polymerizes. Overall not much better than the tetrapaks.
You could use a plant based wax though.
On the subject of packaging costs: I wouldn’t use can prices to compare the cost of something like a tetrapak. That’s an extremely cheap option that doesn’t have anything to compare it to really. If there wasn’t a pressure issue I’m sure they’d sell beer and soda in cardboard plastic hybrids too in order to reduce cost.
Before paraffin, what did they use?
Beeswax. Very expensive. Plant based isn’t that expensive.