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Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

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Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#101

Post by rainbowmverse »

clw8 wrote: post #45
erik-g wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair, but when I shop I don't buy food with just one meal in mind. Sure, at home maybe I'll have a bit less onion one day then I would prefer because I used half of it the night before, but storing excess in the fridge and buying with leftovers in mind or multi-use items (bulk bag of carrots) means I have very little excess food waste. Certainly excess food waste is far, far less than packaging material from t…

You are the exception though. The statistical fact is that most people are like notyourwork, myself included. I'm absolutely horrible at this. I buy a huge bag of potatoes because even if I waste half the bag (although usually I'm not that bad) it's cheaper than buying a few as needed. I want to use them all but I just don't get around to it in time.

You can bake them in the microwave and put them in the freezer until needed. There's a lot you can do with a baked potato. I like to cut those freezer pot pies with them so they're actually filling.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#102

Post by chaostheory »

jonknee wrote: post #37
chaostheory wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon needs to do this with their regular shipments as well. They contain a lot of plastic insulation (air bags). Instead of throwing mine away, I've been saving it until it fills up a closet then I give it to a local UPS store to reuse. My closet fills up in about a month. It would be nice if Amazon had a formal program for this since you can't recycle them with your garbage company.

The manufacturer has a program to recycle them: https://sealedair.com/product-care/recycling-bubble-wrap-pla... You can also use Amazon boxes to donate used clothes and household items: http://givebackbox.com/amazon

givebackbox is cool.

Took a look at sealedair's 'program'. I could be wrong, but it looks like it's just links to other organizations' directories of local recycling programs; most of which are retail stores. Here's why I don't trust retail stores (Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes, Safeway, etc...): while they do a great job of marketing their 'recycling programs' most of what we put into their recycle bins just end up in their normal dumpsters which defeats the purpose.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#103

Post by jogjayr »

chaostheory wrote: post #25
pera wrote: post #19

Please Amazon, do something different about the huge amount of material waste generated by companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. This is the main reason why I stopped using these services, the footprint is just disgusting: plastic bags inside aluminum+plastic bags inside cardboard boxes with more plastic. Please, invent some form of reusable container that can be easily stored and delivered back so we can stop t…

Amazon needs to do this with their regular shipments as well. They contain a lot of plastic insulation (air bags). Instead of throwing mine away, I've been saving it until it fills up a closet then I give it to a local UPS store to reuse. My closet fills up in about a month. It would be nice if Amazon had a formal program for this since you can't recycle them with your garbage company.

> then I give it to a local UPS store to reuse

Nice one! I hadn't thought of this, but I'll start doing it now.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#104

Post by jogjayr »

bpodgursky wrote: post #80
pera wrote: post #19

Please Amazon, do something different about the huge amount of material waste generated by companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. This is the main reason why I stopped using these services, the footprint is just disgusting: plastic bags inside aluminum+plastic bags inside cardboard boxes with more plastic. Please, invent some form of reusable container that can be easily stored and delivered back so we can stop t…

Kind of off topic, but for most of my childhood the mantra was "recycle everything, because plastic and food garbage in landfills takes centuries and centuries to break down" With the new awareness that atmospheric CO2 is the main environmental problem facing the world (rather than giant landfills, which are un-aesthetic but not really a big deal), I've wondered whether this logic makes sense anymore. Isn't a giant l…

But there's the problem that anaerobic decomposition in garbage bags creates methane, which is an even worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#105

Post by jonknee »

chaostheory wrote: post #102
jonknee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manufacturer has a program to recycle them: https://sealedair.com/product-care/recycling-bubble-wrap-pla... You can also use Amazon boxes to donate used clothes and household items: http://givebackbox.com/amazon

givebackbox is cool. Took a look at sealedair's 'program'. I could be wrong, but it looks like it's just links to other organizations' directories of local recycling programs; most of which are retail stores. Here's why I don't trust retail stores (Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes, Safeway, etc...): while they do a great job of marketing their 'recycling programs' most of what we put into their recycle bins just end up in…

No, it says to send it back to them:

> The deflated cells can be sent to any of a number of Sealed Air locations where they will be recycled back into LDPE

If you're in the US, send them here:

  Ameri-Pak, Inc.
  Sealed Air Recycle Center
  477 South Woods Dr.
  Fountain Inn, South Carolina 29644

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#106

Post by notyourwork »

vdnkh wrote: post #35
notyourwork wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the ingredients provided are the exact amounts needed for a meal. If I was making the same meal doing my own shopping I will probably purchase slightly more than I need of some perishable ingredients. These will in a lot of kitchens end up as waste and not used in other meals.

Leftovers?

One word answer's with a question mark are usually always the answer, thanks for contributing to the conversation.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#107

Post by extrapickles »

shmolyneaux wrote: post #90
bpodgursky wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of off topic, but for most of my childhood the mantra was "recycle everything, because plastic and food garbage in landfills takes centuries and centuries to break down" With the new awareness that atmospheric CO2 is the main environmental problem facing the world (rather than giant landfills, which are un-aesthetic but not really a big deal), I've wondered whether this logic makes sense anymore. Isn't a giant l…

There are several reasons to want to reduce the number and size of landfills. First, landfills are very oxygen-poor, which promotes the growth of anaerobic bacteria. The bacteria produce methane, rather than CO2 when breaking down waste. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 (though it doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long). Second, greenhouse gases are released in the extraction of petrochemicals. R…

Quite a few landfills capture the methane and turn it into electricity as they can make a profit doing so.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#108

Post by leokennis »

chaostheory wrote: post #25
pera wrote: post #19

Please Amazon, do something different about the huge amount of material waste generated by companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh. This is the main reason why I stopped using these services, the footprint is just disgusting: plastic bags inside aluminum+plastic bags inside cardboard boxes with more plastic. Please, invent some form of reusable container that can be easily stored and delivered back so we can stop t…

Amazon needs to do this with their regular shipments as well. They contain a lot of plastic insulation (air bags). Instead of throwing mine away, I've been saving it until it fills up a closet then I give it to a local UPS store to reuse. My closet fills up in about a month. It would be nice if Amazon had a formal program for this since you can't recycle them with your garbage company.

The problem is, if you want to cheaply ship cheap stuff quickly, you need to reduce costs. So no time to have your packers pick from 20 sizes of boxes; just toss everything in a huge box. No time to handle returns of broken shipments; just stuff those huge boxes with tons of air bags. No time to actually check what's in the boxes (towels or a vase) because you need to pack 200 boxes an hour to break even.

If "we" want to stop trashing the world, first we need to show we are willing to pay for that.

Re: Blue Apron Plummets After Amazon Files for Meal-Kit Trademark

#110

Post by calafrax »

munificent wrote: post #53
calafrax wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think over next few years we would see a total implosion of meal-kit industry I don't think so. Meal kits are a niche business fighting against mass market competitors already so nothing changes with the Amazon entry. If anything having an established player like amazon advertising meal kits increases market awareness and gets people interested. No one is going to have a monopoly of the food business, ever. It ju…

> No one is going to have a monopoly of the food business, ever. It just doesn't work that way. http://imgur.com/pnMMj https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ConAgra_brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum!_Brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBS_S.A . We aren't there yet, but the trend line is pretty clear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcE4OvnqAY

None of these companies is anywhere close to a monopoly on food.

Cargill might be big at 100B+ revenue (global) per year but US food expenditures are 1.5T+ per year, so even a company as huge as Cargill is capturing https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditures.asp...

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