For the last year i have been pained by buying my cage-free, organic eggs in these new plastic containers at the local super market. I finally wrote the two producers of the eggs and both have tried to respond that it was necessary to prevent egg breakage and that the plastic was recycled and recyclable. I have persisted in the dialog with them pressing them on all the points that paper cartons are also also from recycled materials, recyclable, and are also from renewable resources and biodegradable. When i submitted that many areas do not take styrene other than bottles, they responded that we could mail the cartons to the packaging provider for recycling -- Thats a great environmental solution!

Their responses have been pretty much saying the consumer is king and the consumers want the fancy packaging. I think this is specious marketing thinking though, and mainly as the article suggests just a way to push a premium product into a tight market.

I have decided to vote with my wallet and stop buying the plastic packed eggs. instead will buy the paper packed product at the coop, but this will mean fewer eggs purchased as we dont show at the coop as often (its not convenient location wise), so the egg industry will be loosing on the whole here!