[mrob]

Some products do have excessive packaging, but most packaging is there for good reasons. You need to consider the embedded energy and resources used to make the product, and how the packaging reduces the risk of wasting them if the product is damaged or destroyed.

There are cases where the total environmental impact of plastic packaging is very likely better than the alternatives, e.g. shrink-wrapping a cucumber more than doubles the shelf-life at ambient conditions:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3550898/

And if the plastic is then disposed of in landfill then it doubles as carbon sequestration.

[gowld]

> And if the plastic is then disposed of in landfill then it doubles as carbon sequestration.

Where does plastic come from, if not desequestered carbon? Does it consume CO2 from the air?

[mrob]

It comes from desequestered carbon, but importantly, it's very difficult to re-desequester it. Plastic in landfill is mixed with other waste and uneconomic to recover. It's enforcing "keep it in the ground" (not completely, because the manufacturing and transport release CO2, but better than nothing).