Moreover, polystyrene can be readily recycled, if the food vendor encourages customers to put polystyrene trash in a separate disposal can. So a person who thinks that he is a good environmentalist because he drinks from coated paper cups instead of polystyrene is missing the boat. The most environmentally-friendly coffee cups are washable ceramic mugs, just as the best grocery bags are reusable cloth bags. Closely related to the mistaken idea that paper is environmentally superior to plastic is the notion that heavily packaged products are environmentally bad. In a study written for the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis, Lynn Scarlet points out that in many situations, packaged products may create less solid waste.
Most American households make their orange juice from frozen concentrate, which comes in a package.
The American household, making the same amount of orange juice, throws out a two-ounce cardboard or aluminum container. In the packing-oriented American system, orange juice factories save the peels and sell them for animal feed and other products. In contrast, the Mexico City household can't afford the time to cart 10 ounces of orange peels off to a farm someplace. So, thanks to packaging, the American peels get re-used, and the Mexico City peels end up in a garbage dump. The orange juice example isn't unusual.