Your daily shop bought sandwiches which you probably dont even think about much right, I mean many are delicious but according to a new study in which they have been rating the carbon footprint on buying those "ready-made sandwiches" in particular, it seem they are definitely not good for the planet.

Who knew right sandwiches aren't so innocent eh?

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Researchers from the University of Manchester have found that those prepackaged sandwiches and particularly of those containing cheese, prawns, and pork such as bacon, ham or sausages, and the worst is the ‘breakfast’ sandwiches which contain egg, bacon and sausages which alone generates a crazy 1,441 grams of carbon dioxide.

Huh? 1,441 grams of carbon dioxide? And?

Well its the equivalent (CO2 eq.) of roughly the same emissions as driving a car for 12 miles!

That's insane!!

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But wait before you say its impossible and it cant be right please first understand that the study considered the carbon footprint of 40 home-made and the pre-packaged sandwiches and looked at the whole life cycle of these sandwiches.

So what does this mean?

Well it means everything was considered into the sandwiches from the production of ingredients and packaging, to the food waste so for example some of the largest contributors to a sandwiches carbon footprint are agricultural production, processing ingredients, keeping sandwiches chilled in supermarkets and shops, packaging material and transporting materials.

The worst sandwiches in terms of the carbon footprint rating of "ready made sandwiches" firstly as already discussed number 1 the All Day Breakfast sandwich - 1,441 CO2 eq.

2 Ham and Cheese: 1,350 CO2 eq.
3 Prawn and Mayo: 1,255 CO2 eq.
4 Egg and Bacon: 1,182 CO2 eq.
5 Ham Salad: 1,119 CO2 eq.

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So yes I hope this makes sense to you now that you consider everything else that goes into having those sandwiches waiting on you but the most significant finding was that making your own sandwiches at home can reduce these carbon emissions by a half.

So sandwiches made at home are indeed better for the planet the researchers have found, who knew eh?
The humble ham and cheese sandwich according to the researchers is proving to be most environmentally friendly sandwich, crazy eh?

Thats the 8g of ham, 20g of cheese and 13g of mayo sandwiche

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So consuming 11.5 billion sandwiches annually generates on average 9.5 million tonnes of CO2 eq this is the equivalent to the annual use of 8.6 million cars.

I guess more then ever its more important to understand the contribution from these sectors to the emissions of greenhouse gases they are producing if we can cut these down we can have a healthier planet.