Plastics crisis: Interactions with Food Manufacturers

I chose a product that I buy frequently – Lactaid 2% milk – and went through the process of figuring out how to contact the manufacturer to stress my concern about microplastics in food from plastic packaging.

I found their ‘contact us’ web page and used the ‘email us’ option intended for comments, questions, and feedback. They responded in less than 24 hours with a response pointing to what they were doing to increase the recycled plastic content in their packaging. I sent a second ‘email us’ that included their reference number for my previous comment emphasizing that I was interested in net reduction in plastic packaging because of the microplastics it adds to food…I wanted to buy their product in non-plastic packaging. I got the same response. I became uncertain that there was a person behind the response or simply an AI selected canned message that didn’t answer the question/comment. I got two survey forms (one for each use of the ‘email us’) and filled them out the same….that I was unsatisfied with the response.

(Update: I got a call based on the ‘unsatisfied’ feedback on the survey! Now I am more confident that my concern has been heard. I am not confident that they will move to non-plastic packaging for at least some of their produces…but I have given then a heads-up that there may begin to be a lot more people concerned about microplastics in our food. I’ll see if there is anything new on their packaging on their website in a month or so.)

I am not going to buy their product again and I’m not sure I want to buy any other milk either. I am considering returning to a calcium supplement as I did years ago and getting protein from other sources.

Taking another route:

Beyond Plastics has a letter from members for consolidation into a package for Coco-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestle about their contribution to plastic pollution around the world. They sent a draft which I personalized and returned.

A second call came out from Beyond Plastics to contribute a letter to Coca-Cola specifically urging them to expand their successful El Paso refillable beverage system to every community rather than continuing to use plastic bottles.

The experience has been eye opening in the sense that it appears that food manufacturers are still relatively clueless about the growing awareness of microplastics in our environment and the news of the micro and nano plastics found in many parts of our body. It is no longer about forging ahead with plastic packaging…..it is about net reducing the plastics packaging for foods.

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