31–40 of 362 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most common milk packaging here in Sweden is plastic-coated paper carton. Wonder how that fits with the mumbai law, and how it compare to reusable glass bottles.
Aren't combinations of materials generally harder to recycle? Presumably you have to split the plastic from the paper and recycle each separately?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Bangalore, supermarkets used to give away plastic bags for free. Then a law got passed requiring shops to charge for plastic bags. People, however, just kept paying the price for plastic bags and disposing them once they were done with them. Now there is a ban on plastic [1] and people seems to be carrying their own bags into supermarkets and reusing them. But your solution would have been better. It would have gi…
Here in the UK a law was passed requiring shops to charge 0.05GBP for each plastic bag, and it successfully reduced the number of bags used: "Our data indicates that the 7 main retailers issued around 83% fewer bags (over 6 billion bags fewer) in 2016 to 2017 compared to the calendar year 2014" https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bag-charg... The bags are called "single-use", but the shops also changed…
At the same time, I know it would be huge pain for a lot of people. In Mumbai, it rains really heavy. Like really really heavy. It rains more than 2x it rains in London and that too in just 4 months. So for a lot of people, plastic is literally the roof they need. Zoom in on Mumbai and you would see many shanties with blue "roof"s. That is all plastic. Hope municipality will allow such plastic sheets as they are not single use.
In reality we all know how this will go. If anything plastic use may now increase. Because it will now go unregulated.
Bans in India need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
They banned tinted glasses on cars. In Bangalore, some people prefer to pay fine/bribe than remove the sticker.
Officially, :) In reality we all know how this will go. If anything plastic use may now increase. Because it will now go unregulated. Bans in India need to be taken with a pinch of salt. They banned tinted glasses on cars. In Bangalore, some people prefer to pay fine/bribe than remove the sticker.
How?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some families, yes, it is.
Any idea on the demographics?
The justifications I've heard is that it's a lot of labor saved if the family is sufficiently large and the woman is expected to do all the cooking and cleaning.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Reverting to glass would add weight, breakages and collection costs So how exactly is glass superior to plastic in this application? Seems to me that they moved to plastic because plastic is the better material for the job.
Need to ask not just which is better, but which is better for who? With glass, producing new bottles for each delivery would be super expensive, so it is in their interest to bear the cost of collecting the bottles for reuse and recycling. With plastic, producing new containers is super cheap, so it is fine to continuously produce new ones, but the waste is still produced, so the customers and their local government…
Glass can be cleaned and reused, but it's heavier, so transporting it both ways results in increased emissions. They could also choose to use reusable plastic containers (soda companies did this in Norway up until around 5-6 years ago), but collecting the used containers takes up much more space if they can't be compacted, which I think some grocery stores do now.
There's quite a bit of energy that goes into washing containers as well. Supposedly sometimes more than what is required to manufacture new ones.
I'm not sure we as society are really able to quantify the environmental costs of each just yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But such a tax gives no incentive for companies to change their packaging. The tax is paid by the customer who usually has few or no options. For example in the UK plastic one-litre milk pitcher bottles are ubiquitous. Even the few remaining door-to-door milkmen deliver them, instead of the old one-pint reusable glass bottles. I simply can't buy fresh milk in anything else and i have a recycling bin full of them. Rev…
> Reverting to glass would add weight, breakages and collection costs So how exactly is glass superior to plastic in this application? Seems to me that they moved to plastic because plastic is the better material for the job.
They have to ensure any food residue, glue, labels and any remnants of the under-cap seal are removed or it's junk[0]. It's significantly more expensive than washing and rinsing glass bottles used to be.
[0] http://www.petbottlewashingline.com/pet-bottle-washing-line/
A tax seems the fair solution, if it costs X to dispose of a plastic bottle then tax X each bottle, use the money to dispose of the bottle, adjust X if costs change.
But such a tax gives no incentive for companies to change their packaging. The tax is paid by the customer who usually has few or no options. For example in the UK plastic one-litre milk pitcher bottles are ubiquitous. Even the few remaining door-to-door milkmen deliver them, instead of the old one-pint reusable glass bottles. I simply can't buy fresh milk in anything else and i have a recycling bin full of them. Rev…
Probably neither as dairy farming in an ugly business.