Food is a reasonable target for biodegradable packaging because you don’t really expect the food to sit around for more than a year (for long-term food packaging you just wouldn’t use a biodegradable material).
Packaging products that might have a long shelf life is more problematic. If the material breaks down in saltwater then it will start breaking down if someone picks it up with sweaty or recently washed hands.
Or probably in shipping containers. I assume the salty air on cargo ships would be an issue depending how the bulk of the product is stored while in transit
Food is not the only thing that gets packaged. The worst example that comes to my mind is the way they package microSD cards.
What, you don’t think 1cm² of product should be packaged in a 7×10 cm doubled-up plastic sheet?
Food is a reasonable target for biodegradable packaging because you don’t really expect the food to sit around for more than a year (for long-term food packaging you just wouldn’t use a biodegradable material).
Packaging products that might have a long shelf life is more problematic. If the material breaks down in saltwater then it will start breaking down if someone picks it up with sweaty or recently washed hands.
Or probably in shipping containers. I assume the salty air on cargo ships would be an issue depending how the bulk of the product is stored while in transit