You have learned that many products are sold as concentrates. Why is that important? It is important to the environment. Concentrated products need less packaging. Less packaging cuts down on waste.

In this activity, you will explore using concentrated solutions to reduce waste.

How does your family buy juice? Do you buy it in a 1 or 2 L container? Or do you purchase it in a small can that you thaw and mix? Or do you purchase a packaged mix?

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CC-BY-SA -Photo by kiliweb per Open Food Facts

 If you use frozen juice or use packaged juice crystals, you are using a concentrated product. Concentrated products have a lot of solute per volume of solvent. To make juice from concentrate, water is added. The result is a good-tasting mix of solute and solvent.

Containers of ready-made juice are the opposite. They have less solute per amount of solution. Such solutions are called dilute solutions. You can drink dilute juice right from the package or after adding a small amount of water. Dilute solutions also have a high water content. They require more packaging to hold this higher amount of water. The product could be concentrated and packed in a smaller container, which would reduce packaging.

 Biodegradable or Non-biodegradable

When you look at the environment around you, do you see things that are biodegradable? Biodegradable means "able to decompose or decay."

Items that are biodegradable are helpful to our environment. Over time, these items break down into smaller and smaller pieces and eventually into particles that occur naturally in the environment.

Paper, vegetable peelings, and natural fibres are biodegradable; they decompose rather quickly. Other items such as glass and plastic are considered non-biodegradable because they do not break down. Such items are better recycled or reused instead of sending them to the landfills where they will last for centuries, if not forever.