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FOOD PACKAGING WASTE

Food delivery packaging and tableware waste

Nature Food volume 1, pages 531–532 (2020)Cite this article

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Big data from major online food ordering platforms can facilitate a richer understanding of the environmental impact of current food delivery packaging waste, and scenarios for more sustainable alternatives.

Food delivery services bring more than convenient meals to our doorsteps; they come with extensive quantities of disposable material — food containers, cutlery, napkins, toothpicks and more. Given the growth in the sector in China — the online takeaway market value increased from 22 billion yuan in 2011 to 285 billion yuan in 20191 — and the disastrous impacts of plastic waste on the environment, particularly the oceans, it is surprising how little attention has been given to disposable items used in food delivery services. In Nature Food, Zhou and colleagues2 use big city-level data — 2.8 billion takeaway orders in 353 Chinese cities — from the online food delivery platform, Meituan, to consider the problem of food delivery waste in China.

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Affiliations

  1. Division of Packaging Logistics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Katrin Molina-Besch

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  1. Katrin Molina-Besch
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Correspondence to Katrin Molina-Besch.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Molina-Besch, K. Food delivery packaging and tableware waste. Nat Food 1, 531–532 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-020-00146-z

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