to think food should not be used as packaging?

[Graciescotland]

I was having a quick skim through the Ecover feedback thread the bottles are now being made from sugarcane. I think it's unethical to grow food in the developing world to use as packaging when abillion people will go to bed hungry tonight.

Is it not the by product that is used though? I don't know, but am wondering.

Is it the same thing as this stuff ? A waste product.

Do you feel the same about having uneccesary sugar in your tea or offering it to guests to your house?

Whilst I think it's theoretically possible that some by products do get used. It's moved onto large scale production, in Brazil there are plantations producing hundreds of tonnes of sugarcane, none of it's being used for food. To put in perspective Dow are building a plant in Brazil for 350 000 tonnes of sugarcane to be used as fuel and packaging. This is an older article but in 2003 350 000 tonnes of food would of fed 5.5 million people.

But is it really any different from using the same land to grow say bamboo and using it for that?

If you really want to get wound up about this, on a much larger scale, look up biofuels more generally.

On the theme of growing unnecessary products in Brazil, consider soya, grown, often in clearcut rainforest, predominantly for animal feed, to support first-world demand for meat, consumed at a level that is neither necessary nor sustainable.

Given who Ecover are, the fact that they are publicising this suggests they have considered it carefully and have a rationale which I'm sure they'd be happy to share and discuss with you. An informed view would then be interesting.

YABU People are not starving because of lack of food producing land (And if you're going to complain about wasted production then the EU's subsidies to force growers not to grow stuff here would be more relevant than worrying about food being produced in Brazil where this is serious poverty and growing the richest possible crop is more useful than simply the crop that feeds locals)

YABU, and oversimplistic. The packaging need is there no matter what they use, and sugar cane isn't the best food stuff for people who are starving.

How much food is thrown away in the UK? How many people would that feed?

I think it depends on so many things - ie is it a waste product, if not what are the costs compared to the costs of other packaging.

But I think that anyone who eats meat (me included) should think about whether they can really justify the amount of grain required to produce each kg of meat when so many people are starving.

You can get knitting wool made of sugarcane, sugar cane yarn

Is that better or worse than knitting wool from intensively farmed cotton?

btw plain popcorn makes a good packaging instead of plastic foam peanuts

lush use popcorn as packing material. just dont eat it..... not nice and tasted a bit soapy