What do bagged chickens have to do with sliced ​​cheese?

When Costco tried to cut down on its plastic use earlier this year, putting its popular rotisserie chicken in a thin bag instead of a bulkier clam shell, some chicken lovers were upset.

The bags were leaking, they said, and risked making greasy messes. Their edges were prone to splitting. “Chicken juices spilled all over the trunk of our car!” one person complained on Reddit.

It was another chapter in the packaging wars.

It’s widely accepted that the world needs to use less plastic. Plastic waste fills landfills around the world and clogs rivers and streams. Recycling hasn’t kept pace: less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled. Plastic can also contain chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems.

Controlling plastic packaging, which is often used once and then thrown away, is an obvious first step. But putting this idea into practice is proving difficult for companies, policymakers and consumers. Everyone has their own opinion.

“You can see experiments in this area all over the world,” said Sandra Goldmark, a sustainability expert at Columbia University’s Climate School. “Right now, most of the experiments don’t work very well. We haven’t really solved this problem yet.”

Costco’s bagged rotisserie chicken is a classic example of a “less bad” solution, she said. “But the funny thing about less bad solutions is they tend to disappoint everyone,” she added. “There’s less plastic. There’s fewer trucks on the road. But the chicken is still in a plastic bag, and there’s chicken juice all over your car.”

Consider a New York state bill that would require companies to reduce the plastic packaging they use by 50% over 12 years, requiring them to either find more sustainable options or pay a tax.

Opponents of the law have pointed out that it could mean the demise of another American institution: sliced ​​cheese. The plastic-to-cheese ratio in packages of individually wrapped cheese slices means they would be a prime target if the law were passed, they said.

“With this bill, New Yorkers can look forward to a future where they can retrieve unpackaged items — from cereal to cheese to hot dogs — from supermarket bins before they buy them and take them home,” Nelson Eusebio of the National Association of Supermarkets told the New York Post. The bill has passed the Senate but has yet to be voted on in the Assembly.

Supporters of the bill mocked the bill and said there were alternatives, such as using paper.

“It’s clear that some multi-billion dollar companies and their lobbyists are not ready to embrace the revolutionary concept of separating cheese slices with wax paper,” said Judith Enck, president of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics.

Four other states — California, Colorado, Oregon and Maine — have passed laws aimed at reducing packaging. States and cities are also increasingly banning single-use plastic bags. New York and Baltimore have sued plastic manufacturers for harming public health and the environment by promoting single-use plastic.

Some companies are starting to make changes.

Last month, Amazon announced it would replace its plastic air cushions, designed to cushion products during transport, with recycled paper packaging, a move that would save the company from using nearly 15 billion air cushions a year. Bath & Body Works recently launched hand soap refills in paper cartons. In Britain, supermarket chain Aldi is experimenting with paper strips to wrap bananas instead of bags, and is also selling wine in paper bottles.

Companies are also trying to make plastic recycling easier. In the UK, Coca-Cola, which environmentalists accuse as a major plastic polluter, this year tested Sprite plastic bottles without the self-adhesive labels that can make recycling harder. Instead, the bottles bore an embossed logo.

“There are so many tradeoffs” that complicate sustainable packaging design, says John Thøgersen, a green consumer expert at Aarhus University in Denmark. For example, people might think that glass bottles are more environmentally friendly than plastic bottles, but that’s not necessarily the case because transporting heavier glass bottles can require more energy.

Food waste, which harms the climate, is another consideration: yogurts sold in larger pots require less plastic than individual pots, but research has shown that people who buy pots also tend to throw away more yogurt.

And of course, there’s functionality. Some customers seem to have used Costco’s old rotisserie chicken packaging in place of a plate.

To eliminate plastic waste, companies must do one of two things, experts say: develop truly biodegradable or recyclable materials, which are still being developed, or move toward reusable or refillable packaging. Costco, for example, could ask customers to repeatedly return a reusable chicken container. Bulk stores that allow people to take home nuts and grains in their own containers are another example of this approach.

Costco claims its chicken bags would save 17 million pounds of plastic each year. Columbia University’s Dr. Goldmark said that would be a commendable result.

“Perfection should not be the enemy of good,” she said. “But we must not lose sight of the fact that ‘least bad’ may not be enough.”