THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A CEREAL BOX
Every time I’m in a grocery store, I look down the full length of an aisle, usually near the middle of the store, and am immediately overwhelmed with the sheer volume of stuff lining the shelves. What I used to perceive as food has become cardboard boxes, plastic bags, aluminum cans, glass bottles with plastic lids, plastic bottles with plastic lids, aluminum lined plastic bags, cardboard boxes full of aluminum lined plastic bags, boxes full of bags WRAPPED IN PLASTIC, and every other permutation therein.
My brain has always been wired this way, and it is, admittedly, quite overwhelming when you zoom out to this angle. And that’s just one aisle, in one store, in one city, in one country on this planet built around this same model of food packaging and distribution. It inspires no small amount of awe and terror when I try to imagine just how many boxes of Cheerios are sitting on shelves in every grocery store in the US right now (let alone on Earth, but baby steps).
The moment I started to see the world in this way, the mind boggling scale of our consumption almost sent me into a crippling depression. All of this stuff comes from something and goes somewhere when we’re done with it; an inconvenient truth the modern world begs us to forget. And not everyone lives this way, of course, but we do, here, in the ever convenient and industrialized world. And we have for many decades, which we are seeing ever more apparently has consequences. This is in no way meant as a rebuke of behavior within a system in which we have little control. It is, however, a commentary on awareness. Recognizing and appreciating what something is, how it came to be, and where it goes so that we may change our relationship to it.
I fully acknowledge that not everyone has the luxury of seeing with his level of scrutiny, especially with a meeting in an hour and hungry mouths at home to feed. It is a special kind of neurosis that not everyone has the time, energy, or patience for. So what can we do? In the face of overly packaged consumption, I try to take control where I can. To me, this means when I reach for that cereal box I first acknowledge the vast and complex web of forces I am connecting to. All of the things in it are derived from something the universe has given: trees, plants, grains, water, sunlight, oil, and no small amount of human ingenuity to drive the whole process. Appreciating all of this, I may choose to take fewer or less often, or to not take it at all and leave it for someone else. I may search for a box by a local brand that took less energy to get to me, or one with a product certification label on the back such as FSC (The Forest Stewardship Council), or that is made from recycled content.
FSC is a well known non-profit within the AEC industry for its third party verification of sustainably managed forest products, ensuring both communities and ecologies are protected.
The How2Recycle label was launched by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition to aid consumers in understanding how to properly dispose of packaging materials. This label, on the bottom of an actual Cheerios box, indicates the box is fully recyclable and the #2HDPE bag can be collected, clean and dry, at your local grocery or Target store, if available. Look for the bin labeled “plastic film”.
While I have little say over how something is made, I feel the most control over what happens after the point of sale. Recycling is, of course, the low hanging fruit, but services may not exist in all areas. I’m lucky enough to live in one where cardboard is easily recycled and the #2 HDPE (high density polyethylene) cereal bags can be put in plastic film recycling bins found at most major grocery chains and Target stores. The How2Recycle label on the back of most boxes is usually a good indicator of where something should go when you're done with it. This, like most recycling, is not the silver bullet solution to the plastics crisis and often just kicks the can, but it’s a tick better than immediately landfilling or incinerating. That is where the act of buying less, I think, carries the most weight. You don’t waste what you don’t buy.
I want to acknowledge again that while these alternatives do give us as consumers slightly more power in this system, it does not address the avalanche of overproduction or the lack of options many face. I think it’s no small step, then, for those of us without access to or time for these alternatives, to start with a simple gesture of gratitude. Giving thanks to the tree who gave its life to make that box, to the clouds that brought the rain to nourish those oats, and to the people who cared for and harvested them so they may become something you delight in. To acknowledge the many complex and beautiful forces that brought that thing into the world can help turn something industrial into something real. This simple act, which I take no credit for, alludes to the traditional indigenous teaching of the Honorable Harvest, which translated in many different ways boils down to be respectful of the life you are taking, honor its sacrifice and return it in whatever way you can, share what is given, and never waste it.
The system as it is, with its linear model of extraction, processing, consumption, and waste, is not sustainable. But I think the more awareness we can bring to it, the healthier it will become. As a regenerative student and practitioner, I believe thinking of the larger systems of which we are apart is essential to rewriting the current narrative in favor of balance and longevity. It may not move mountains, but it can at least inform our choices. We take much from this planet, but every thing has a story. The Cheerios will always be there. We can’t stop the economic machines of the modern world from making them. But we can choose whether or not to buy them, and what we do with the stuff surrounding them in their brief but consequential life. There is opportunity in shifting our perspective, and I think we all benefit when we don’t throw it away.
Post Sript: General Mills sold roughly 139.1 million boxes of Cheerios in 2021 in the US alone, and there are roughly 2,722 Cheerios per box equating to 378.6 BILLION (over ⅓ of a trillion) Cheerios sold per year in just one country. That’s a lot of oats…
Post Post Script: A recent study by Environment America and USPIRG in March 2024 highlights that #2 and #4 plastic film may not be as recyclable as claimed. Over 95% of tracked Amazon film, pillows, and plastic liners end up in landfill, incinerated, shipped overseas, or downcycled. Further evidence that recycling is not the solution, and has been touted by the oil industry as a license to make more plastic.
Further reading: https://pirg.org/edfund/resources/truth-in-recycling/