Originally Posted by
Loren Pechtel
Given how it's holding it's shape I think it must be frozen. I also can't picture a baggage worker putting that on a belt, the only thing that makes sense is that it was in an insulated container that broke up somewhere in the system. I've seen plenty of cardboard boxes on the belt, I think this was probably styrofoam in a cardboard box (we know someone who does deep sea fishing, they ship out frozen fish to some friends packed this way) and something snagged the box, at that point the styrofoam would quickly get broken.
A styrofoam or even hard plastic “Coleman”/“Igloo” type cooler can have their lid come undone due to the baggage handling systems impact on them and then the “contained” goods more easily plop out.
But there are also people who try to transport this kind of stuff in sheets of paper — in some parts I used to even see this kind of stuff packed in newsprint
— and after enough time the paper gets so soggy that the meat/poultry/fish/crustaceans will just plop out of the paper packaging. And the rougher the handling, the more likely that the paper wrap fails sooner than later.
Given the TSA’s obsession over food items in passenger luggage, using gloves can make good sense. And they already need those disposable gloves to feel-up passengers selected for a hands-on screening of body parts, so it’s not like they need new kinds of supplies to deal with animal products.