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Tony's Talk - Short Sighted - Or What?
Fish and Chips suffer from being encased in plastic carrier bags that encourage the food you have prepared to lose its ‘pan appeal’ and become soggy through sweating. Paper packaging is far superior for the transport of hot food allowing your product to ‘breathe’.
However, in the great scheme of things the current ‘war on plastics’ is totally unwarranted. The horror stories of plastic pollution are not the fault of plastic itself but arise because we are all at fault in its disposal.
Fish and Chips suffer from being encased in plastic carrier bags that encourage the food you have prepared to lose its ‘pan appeal’ and become soggy through sweating. Paper packaging is far superior for the transport of hot food allowing your product to ‘breathe’.
However, in the great scheme of things the current ‘war on plastics’ is totally unwarranted. The horror stories of plastic pollution are not the fault of plastic itself but arise because we are all at fault in its disposal.
We should learn from the animal world which invariably never ‘soils its own nest’ and we should treat littering as a heinous crime. Governments are in a race to enhance their ‘green’ credentials by levying punitive taxes on the use of plastics instead of organising uniform collection facilities for its efficient recycling. They are choosing to ignore the fact that the production of plastics creates a far smaller carbon footprint than paper and card manufacturing. It requires more than four times the amount of energy to produce paper over plastic and twice as much to transport an equivalent amount.
Furthermore, plastic packaging is far more efficient in protecting foodstuffs in transit and prolonging their shelf life than are paper products. Riverford Organics, one of the largest vegetable box schemes in the UK has undertaken extensive research into its own cups produce fewer greenhouse gases than paper cups or even re-usable cups, that plastic bags produce far less than paper bags and foam egg boxes far less than their wood pulp equivalent.
We need to attain a more balanced assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the individual materials but above all seek to outlaw international litter and get serious about efficient and comprehensive recycling of these valuable and in some instances, finite raw materials.
However, despite all these problems we must be grateful that we are all involved in producing a dish that has had an enduring appeal for over 160 years. The resounding success of National Fish and Chip Day, the response seen from your customers and the exuberance and ingenuity shown by all those Friers involved is testimony to the future of our National Dish!
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