December 20th, 2009 Plastic or Paper?
Not these.
These.
I always wonder which type of egg carton is more environmentally friendly, so I decided to do a little research:
- I can compost or recycle the paper ones. The polystyrene foam ones are not recyclable here in Podunk Junction – they have to be thrown in the trash.
- One vote for paper.
- According to Eggland’s Best, it takes one-third less material to make plastic egg cartons than the paper/pulp ones, and the recycling process from paper to pulp uses a lot of energy, water and chemicals.
- I think plastic wins this round.
- According to a study done in 1998 by the Department of Food Science at Clemson University, eggs packed in paper cartons (what they call MPP or molded paper pulp) had less breakage compared to foam cartons when transported in plastic crates. If they were shipped in cardboard boxes, there was no significant difference. When I check the cartons in the store, my perception is I find more broken eggs in the paper cartons than in the foam cartons.
- I call that one a tie.
After all that, I still can’t decide which is “better”. Do you choose one type of packaging over the other?
While standing in front of the dairy case pondering the “green” aspects of egg cartons, I automatically scanned all the prices and picked up jumbo eggs. Why? ‘Cause Mom always said that if the sizes are 20¢ or less different in price, buy the biggest ones.
Not having a calculator with me, I wrote down the prices of all four sizes and checked when I got home. You know what? Mom was right.
| Cost/Dozen | Oz./Dozen | Cost/Oz. | Cost/Lb. | |
| Medium |
$2.39 |
21 |
$0.114 |
$1.821 |
| Large |
$2.49 |
24 |
$0.104 |
$1.660 |
| X-Large |
$2.59 |
27 |
$0.096 |
$1.535 |
| Jumbo |
$2.79 |
30 |
$0.093 |
$1.488 |
The jumbo eggs were cheaper per pound than the other sizes.
However, buying jumbo eggs sometimes presents a problem – occasionally my recipes don’t turn out quite right. I discovered that recipes are written using large eggs as a standard. I’ve been using too many eggs in certain recipes, according to this handy conversion chart from large eggs to other sizes:
| Large | Jumbo | X-Large | Medium | Small |
|
1 = |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
2 = |
2 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
|
3 = |
2 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
|
4 = |
3 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
|
5 = |
4 |
4 |
6 |
7 |
|
6 = |
5 |
5 |
7 |
8 |
As an added benefit, the three eggs called for in my casserole recipe would cost $.6225 using 3 large eggs ($2.49 ÷ 12 = $.2075 each), but only $.465 ($2.79 ÷ 12 = $.2325 each) now that I know I can/should use only 2 jumbo eggs. It doesn’t sound like much, but I’ll bet those “pennies saved” will start to add up.
