It is obvious from seeing what and how much people throw away as they stay here that food packaging is responsible for a huge part of the garbage problem. Yes, so many plastic items have recycling symbols on them, and people put them in the blue box in the city, but, as mentioned in a previous post, most facilities do not have the ability to process most plastics. So the packaging becomes landfill.
Lets also factor in the amount of energy and resource used to create this packaging, especially the plastics. Then the packaging product has to make its way to where it is packed. Then to the consumer.
Just like building disposable cars and appliances keeps people in jobs, package creation and disposal is a huge industry. We've all been tricked into buying the stuff in escalating amounts.