Does anyone have any ideas for a startup that could help solve this problem that is plaguing the world?
Instead put the focus on creating a system of highly standardised containers for selling food and other products in.
These containers would be washing and refundable, and could have paper branding stuck on them.
Surely there's opportunities here for a startup to be the creator of such a system?
My e-commerce startup uses reusable Ikea containers[1] for shipping and reusable Little Bird Bag[2] for local pickups.
In Australia packaging is already regulated to a high degree (you don't hear about it in the media). Next year my company will have to pay an AUD 800 (USD 590) per year fee to the federal government, larger companies have to pay up to AUD 250,000 (USD 185,000) per year. This fee is in addition to other duties/taxes/levies on the local, state and federal level such as e-waste.
While a "highly standardised system" sounds excellent on face value, there will be edge cases that break things. An example that comes to mind is e-waste in Australia.
My company imports many Raspberry Pis into Australia. The federal department of environment saw from the importation documents that they were "computers" and then wanted to charge the company for e-waste. In Australia, e-waste is calculated by weight, and the government stated that an average computer is 20Kg+ (by contrast a Raspberry Pi maxes out at 42 g)!
[1] https://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/30160964/
[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi_Oa6ygtqR/?taken-by=littlebird...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_car
Trash sorting robots.
Production-byproduct CO2 capture with algae.
Contained plastic-eating bacteria.
Biodegradable fungi instead of plastic packaging.
Reuse airpacks for cord storage.