Less than six months ago, the Bags Law was put into operation, and according to the National Environment Directorate (Dinama) and supermarkets the consumption of these dropped 80%. La Cámara de Industrias (CIU) habla de un poco menos, del 65%.Anyway, the reduction is important.The problem is that this happens at the same time that the amount of foods that are packaged grows exponentially (fruits, vegetables, cheeses, cold cuts, meats, prepared menus ...).There are those who defend that this is due to food conservation policies, others recognize that it is modern life that demands more and more packaging, smaller and easier to move.

"It is the time of the monkey dose.Of putting one or two apples packaged, already sealed, already with the price.It is faster than taking the fruit, putting it in the bag and weighing it. La persona toma el empaque y se va”, explica Daniel Menéndez, de la Asociación de Supermercados del Uruguay (ASU)."This happens with many products.There are beets packaged in vacuum, cold cuts and cheeses packed, already heavy, of four or five different brands. La gente no quiere esperar en una fiambrería, no quiere sacar el número y esperar.Do not have time.Grab the product and leave.Simple".

“Es algo que tiene que ver con los ritmos de vida, con las tendencias de los consumidores actuales”, dice Verónica Skerl, coordinadora de Impulsa Alimento, un programa de la CIU que busca aumentar la competitividad de las pequeñas y medianas empresas alimenticias, y potenciar así sus capacidades de exportación. “La tendencia va hacia proporcionar porciones cada vez más pequeñas. Es lo que requieren los consumidores y es lo que hace que aumenten la cantidad de empaques”.

“Sometimes it puts a lot of focus on what is happening at the pollution level, and looks only at the container without thinking about the advantages that it can have. Lo cierto es que hoy los supermercados aprovechan productos que tendrían que tirar a la basura porque ya perdieron su buen aspecto”, sostiene Ignacio González, ingeniero químico que trabajó por 30 años en la industria del plástico haciendo envases de leche y bandejas.And he adds: “With the packaging they can fraction, divide, present things in such a way that they can be used.Many times the pieces of a fruit are presented as something sophisticated that if one saw it, it would perhaps throw it away ”.

“Now vacuum meats are sold, of all cuts, well presented. El tipo de poliestireno que se usa ahora permite que la carne dure dos meses en la heladera. Es algo que les cambió la vida a los importadores, que permite llegar a mercados a los que antes era imposible acceder”, señala Agustín Tassani, del Centro Tecnológico del Plástico (Ctplas).

But is it all positive?The truth is, no.The data show that although the 1 is no longer consumed.200 million bags that were poured annually to the market, the use of other types of polluting products and often difficult to recycle is increasing.

The figures are lapidary

That more and more containers are used is something that can be checked with data. En 2015 eran 80 millones de kilos los que la industria vertía en el mercado, según las cifras de la CIU. En 2016 el número bajo a 78 millones, pero en 2017 pasó a 83 millones y en 2018 se confirmó el incremento llegando a 85 millones de kilos.The same weight that has 65.000 cars, or 340.000 motorcycles or eight million computers.And almost everything ends at the final disposal sites of the intentions.

What is recycled is a joke.

Las cifras del Plan de Gestión de Envases (PGE) —que funciona solo en seis departamentos (Canelones, Flores, Maldonado, Montevideo, Rivera y Rocha)— son dramáticas. Y son las que ha puesto sobre la mesa la Dinama para exigir la votación de la nueva ley de residuos, la que ya fue aprobada en ambas cámaras pese a la negativa de la CIU. Aunque año a año se puede notar una leve mejoría, lo cierto es que los logros son modestos: en 2015 recuperaron 1,4% de los envases que se vertieron al mercado, en 2016 fueron 2,8%, en 2017 se llegó a 3,3% y en 2018 apenas a 3,5%.

The majority of what was poured (due to its weight) were glass packaging, which went from being 23% of the total to 25%, which implied the passage of 19.5 million kilos in 2017 to 22 million in 2018. De todo esto, el PGE recuperó menos del 1%.

En segundo lugar, en el entorno del 18%, se ubicaron los envases de tereftalato de polietileno, conocido como PET, el que se utiliza para hacer las botellas de aguas, refrescos, detergentes, bidones, envases de champú y frascos de medicamentos, solo por nombrar algunos ejemplos. En 2018 se trató de 15,6 millones de kilos de PET, de los cuales el Plan de Gestión de Envases recuperó poco más de 600.000 kilos, about 4%.

O sea, cada año se lanzan al mercado 15 millones de kilos de botellas de plástico que nadie recupera, que se pierden, que no se reciclan.

Market question

"The client is always right" is a phrase that is attributed to Herry Gordon Selfridge, founder in 1909 of the Selfridge stores in London.Then the Swiss hotel César Ritz created his own version: "Le Customer N'un Jamais Tort" (customers are never wrong). Los alemanes también modificaron las palabras, manteniendo el sentido: “el cliente es rey”.And the Japanese took another step: "The client is God," they said.But that's how it is?The customer is always right?Never wrong?Should he be considered a king or a God?But beyond that, is it the client responsible for the packaging changing, that there are more and more containers and are getting smaller and smaller?Is it the culprit of the 85 million kilos of garbage that the industry pours to the market?Maybe at some point yes, but this is a half truth.

“The drama is the bottles (plastic).They have caused a collapse of health resources, problems with bottles stuck in sanitation systems.And this is not a consumer problem, but of companies, which are those that have to assume the cost of what they generate. Son las empresas las que eligieron utilizar envases no retornables.The client is not absolutely free.Cannot opt for one product or another with freedom.Is conditioned by propaganda, by the container that companies decide to use.There are certain drinks that only come in non -returnable bottles, ”says González vehemence.

He warns that what happened with the bottles was the greatest change he witnessed in his three decades working in the plastic industry.He also says that what was happening with the bags was predictable and that if there was an increase in its use, it had to do more than anything with the growth of supermarket throughout the country.But the bottles did not: he saw the passage from glass to plastic, even witnessed how some companies resisted the change until they were impossible, and how they got today, in which there are brands with more than 10 water presentations, with gas and no gas, with different measures.

“The big problem Uruguay has is that people don't drink water from the tap.And this is not the fault of people or companies. Acá OSE y la Unidad Reguladora de Servicios de Energía y Agua (Ursea) deberían transparentar sus datos, y si hay un problema con la potabilidad del agua arreglarlo.That should be a priority for the next government.If people drink more water from the tap, part of this problem would be fixed, ”says González.

Beyond the bottles, there are other packaging that the supermarkets themselves understand that they exist to attract consumers. “Lo cierto es que hoy por hoy no existen limitaciones para los usos de envases, incluso hay una tendencia a la aparición de envases extra.It is the suppliers who handle the issue, those who put the products in one way or another. Me refiero, por ejemplo, al uso de packs: un jabón en polvo y un detergente que vienen juntos dentro de un envase extra”, explica Menéndez, de la ASU.In this way to the two containers, to the powdered soap and the detergent, another one is added in which these products are stored together.The same goes for snacks, packages that have chip potatoes, peanuts and other products together, and that are united by an extra container.

The other look

But the use of containers, for some, is not always negative. Jorge Pereyra, vocero de la CIU, ve en el plástico un universo de oportunidades para la conservación de productos.“There is no doubt that in the entire world in plastic in different compositions it has been the solution par excellence for food conservation.An example is the long -lived milk container, which resolves lost times, and that allows the transfer of milk from one point from the country to the other.Expanded polystyrene also shows several advantages, ”he says.

Pereyra continues and warns at least three achievements of expanded polystyrene: “Conservation, both to keep the cold and color in food trays;General asepsis, regarding the absence of food pollution, which serves to serve them in hospitals, educational centers and prisons;And also in 95% these containers are composed of air, which makes them almost 100% recyclable ”.

El uso de poliestireno expandido ha sido polémico en algunos países.In 2015, for example, New York prohibited its use, because it was not recycled.The Supreme Court revoked this measure after the industry promised to take care of the recycling of these materials.

The figures of the packaging management plan do not differ between expanded and unplanned polystyrene (the first is the one used for food trays, as referred to Pereyra, the unplanned is the one that is usually used, for example, in pots of creamsu flan). Anualmente la industria vierte en Uruguay un promedio de 1,3 millón de kilos de poliestireno al mercado, pero no existen datos precisos sobre cuánto de esto se recupera.Despite the lack of numbers, Pereyra warns that the industry deals with its recovery.

“In Uruguay, in an extended responsibility exercise of the producer (even without law that forces it), trays, glasses, etc, of expanded polystyrene are recovered.They are compacted by heat, become blocks and export to Malaysia. Ya se han exportado siete contenedores, que evitaron el enterramiento de ese residuo en los sitios de disposición final municipales”, advierte el vocero de la CIU.

González, despite being critical of the multiplication of containers, warns that there are cases in which its use is understandable."With Cherry tomatoes, for example, that's fine, because before it was wasted a lot for crushing," he says, who says he agrees with the new waste law, because he says he will make companies care more about the type of type ofcontainer they use."If the container weighs more, they will have to pay more, so they will have to use better materials," he warns.

Es el artículo 47 de la nueva ley el que dice que los importadores y fabricantes “deberán minimizar el volumen y peso de los envases”.At the same time the tax that they must pay will grow together with the weight of these.

González believes that there is only one solution to this whole problem: "The issue is to look for the fair balance between food conservation and the possibility of recovering the materials used to make the containers".