JMHO......
Going on how fast pellets soak up humidity from the air
Going on how long it takes Burt to seriously let me know that yesterdays pellets are not fit for his consumption (24 hrs and they are stale as far as he is concerned)
Going on how many things can leach through cardboard and/ or climb in through the tiny gaps where it is folded to make the box
Going on the fact cardboard can not ever be air tight keeping contaminants, pests or air out and allowing pellets to loose nutrients in the process
I personally would never buy pellets for my bird that came in anything other than an air tight sealed plastic bag or proper container. In a dream world I would love to eliminate as much waste as possible but you can not/ should not ever consider compromising your birds health or safety for this mission!
I have seen many stores bag up their own mixes and I once saw a pet shop mixing up their own little seed and pellet mix for sale for companion birds......... they had a rat loose in the store (actually more than one which were terrifying all the birds) that they saw run over the food and help itself to a munch while the staff were not actually packing the bags of their special mix. They never scooped even the top layer of the mix away or anything, they just went back to bagging the mix- this is the sort of thing I would never want my bird coming into contact with. Even when I told them I had seen the rat walking on the top of all the food they did not care and just smiled and laughed like it was cute...... If I won't chance eating it then my bird is sure as heck not putting it in his beak!
You can not always trust loose weight places to do the right thing with safe food handling especially if they are self serve for the customers- I will not even go into detail as to why I will no longer purchase loose weight anything that can not be washed or does not need to be boiled before cooking but there are certain things I do not ever wish to share with strangers and one of them is someone else's poor hygiene practices on my food.
thanks for sharing.
And it is of course your choice. But as animal and nature lovers we should pay A LOT of attention to the plastic problem.
Firstly because it contains horrible toxins like phtalates, bpa, PBC's etc etc...
these substances give plastics their abilities, but they are also: carcinogenic and mutagenic, endocrine disruptive, you name it!
ALL plastic is considered leaching toxins and it absorbs hazardous substances.
Most people are still NOT aware of this, that's mostly due to heavy lobbying from the plastic makers ( oil and gas companies) .
Further, as a rule plastic is not recycled!
There are exceptions but they usually need a) MORE virgin plastic ( as if we didn't have enough) and b) They will NEVER be recycled twice.
This leaves our nature severely messed up. Belive me I have been studying this for a long time and I have travelled all over the world and seen where plastic ends up .
USA is the worlds biggest plastic exporter ( that number is accounted into the recycling rate) mostly to third world countries.
Voila there you have it. Plastic packaging and love for Nature don't go hand in hand and we are stdying the death rate of birds caused by plastic ( i can tell you already now the rates are huge) .