All manifactured products which have to be packaged, have a damaging impact on the environment. The three ice creams, used in our experiment were packaged. The expensive ice cream package consists of cardboard and the lower priced ones are made out of plastic. The disposal of the packaging contributes to greenhouse gases (CO2) and the release of toxins (vinyl chloride monome).
The packaging also needs a lot of energy, for example oil is used for the plastics, and trees are cut down for the use of paper. For the processing of these raw and scarce materials a great amount of water is needed.
Another example of the energy being used is the essential cooling of the ice cream, which requires a significant amount of energy and so releases high emissions of CO2, again contributing to greenhouse gases. Finally the transport of the ice cream to stores and customers, which also increases the amount of pollution.
Another environmental impact are the cows which produce the milk used for the ice cream, as they require food and water, sources of energy and also they produce methanol gas, which is is extremely damaging towards the environment.
Also many of the products require certain ingredients which as vanilla flavouring from Madagascar in this case- connected to high CO2 emissions as a by-product of the long transport which results in further damage towards the environment.
