I was buying those in 2008… Certainly around long before that, e.g. https://www.bikemag.com/blog/020305-hammer-gel-rasberry-energy-food-review
Pretty sad they’re not more common…
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Tiddy oggies, Cornish pasties. They were designed/cooked to be portable, the crust used as the container, then eaten or used to bludgeon something to death. Bread is the same, the crust is the container; bun or loaf.
I don’t think gels wrappers are significant when looking at it holistically, but I’m not a fan of plastic so avoid it where I can.
Have you ever tried cycling with one?
They turn into crumbs in a jersey pocket or frame bag 
Mini pork pies fare much better (but are always wrapped in non-recyclable on a recyclable plastic tray)
@gingerbongo said it above nearly; plastic recycling isn’t great and uses loads of energy (is it green? The energy, or fossil fuelled?) to get the plastic back to a useable state again. Then there’s the discarding of loads of soiled materials, so off to landfill in some poor country that goes. And the rest is just binned.
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To be fair, in the UK most now goes to efw rather than being land filled here or abroad these days. A lot of the recipient countries that we used to offshore all our waste to started massively cracking down, as we were shipping absolute ‘rubbish’ when it was supposed to be recyclable grade.
Certainly in the south west all the major waste providers are 99.9% no landfill - and I expect that’s the same across all but the furthest reaches of the UK. efw is better than landfill, but far from a perfect solution. Obvs the ideal is to design the plastic out (where appropriate) or to eliminate unnecessary plastics.
I’ve seen presentations from some interesting tech that can be used especially for things like medical waste. It’s called plasma gasification. Look it up, it’s like scifi!
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Dude, with this sensible viewpoint, you ain’t gonna be generating any clicks to the Daily Mail here 
Or getting some Boomers enraged about house prices / Rishi not having Sky / Venture Capitalism, etc.
I didn’t realise that EFW plastic is better than landfill 
I’d assumed that the gases were bad, better in the ground, but no.
CoOp have recycling in-store, so any “single use” plastics that are CoOp branded, you can be sure will be recycled (meal deal stuff, ready meal lids, bread bags etc)
(Which makes my “on-bike cafe” stop OK Prawn sandwich, double mini pork pie, can of Coke decanted into bidon)
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Yeah the ‘flexible’ plastics had been in debate for a while now i.e. Should be kerbside. Lots of supermarkets will take it front of store.
Our school is trying really hard to be ‘eco’, so they take all those soft plastics which is really handy for us. I’ve been reading the recycling instructions on packaging and there a lot more that can go that route now rather than just bread bags.
We have a drawer where we stuff them all until there’s a bag full and send it down with the kids. 
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How very dare you- pretty sure the aircon is mostly metal 
Got to say, apart from the air travel 4 flights per year, Greta would probably not be too sad about how we live here. I love to be hot & don’t have the AC on in the day by choice even when its 40C+. We do have AC on at night though.
Saved a good few kg of CO2 bike commuting this week, although said bike was flown in from Germany but have a hunch it’s possible to tie yourself up in knots about this & I don’t plan to ride a camel, the local sustainable alternative.
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I’m in love with musettes
They’re like miracle bags, can’t believe I’ve not used one until now
Waxed cotton
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They’re awful.
I cycled 30km with one on Friday evening.
Had my CoOp meal deal in it.
Sandwich perforated against my back on the way 
You’re only supposed to get them handed up and then eat the contents, you don’t cycle along with them for more than a couple of minutes…
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Plastic city
They’re great for hour plus, so much better than hot cumbersome backpacks
Haven’t done a 3+ ride with one, but if you plan to eat everything unlike halfway, it folds up into a jersey pocket afterwards
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What are you eating on rides of under five hours???
Panniers are the best 
Agree, have picked up a few of them at events over the years & use them to carry anything that wont fit in bike jersey pocket. A new set of work clothes or something. Very useful.
Don’t think I’d chuck a co-op sandwich in there mind. Just eat the sandwich.
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Realise I’m on a commute, but take out the laptop there’s a banana, bacon sandwich, plus the usual jersey/ pocket/saddlebag stuff so the bike and jersey stay ‘clean’. Multiply the bananas and sandwiches for the length of ride.
I am using a sandwich bag today but a slim sandwich box maybe made of bamboo or cannabis (hemp for narks) would float your boat.
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Is your banana also slim by the time you arrive at work?
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Jersey pocket?! Top-tube bag just behind the stem, with the snack of choice ready cut into bike sized cubes.
Sushi rice bakes, adapted from tour de France bloke’s cookbook, savoury and/or sweet. Trained and raced on those for a decade or so.
Hmm. Which banana…?
It’s real slim, and shady.
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You could always put it in a sandwich bag 
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