Things like this make me wish I had a more rural lifestyle and had the space for stuff like this. Cooking is great and all, you can do an awful lot with just tools you can store in a kitchen. But experimenting with ingredients, and man, tools is a whole 'nother level.
YouTube channels like Alex French Guy Cooking where he makes his own mozzarella, worked with other YouTube makers to create the best pasta roller ever made, a massive, amazing meat tenderizing mallet, and just the YouTube makers in general almost have me wanting to rent my one bedroom condo out so I can go live out in the sticks and buy cheap tools like a small 5# process cheese cooker, tear off my shirt and Hulk-transform into a mad scientist.
> When big corporations are doing something you don’t like, you don’t use PR to fix it. > No, the way to make corporations change their behaviour, is to just make a law about it. But for example society in the UK and US (not sure where else) has basically just decided that plastic straws are not acceptable, and major corporations have made huge changes in a matter of months to remove them. That's much faster than imp…
It's not altruism, they're just getting ahead of changes in the law. The EU announced[1] they were looking at banning single use plastics. It was after that announcement that lots of companies annoucned they were making changes. By getting ahead of the law they can brand it as doing something they didn't need to do. (Much like how UK phone companies announced they were "abolishing roaming charges" because they did it…
All of what you're describing sounds like PR to me. The fact of the matter is Starbucks are reducing plastic straws and there is no law telling them to do so.
Given the problems with plastic waste how can anyone justify individually wrapped cheese slices? (Constructive answers only please. I am genuinely interested in seeing if there are any arguments in favour.)
Is plastic waste that much of a problem in first world countries? We're pretty diligent with transporting our garbage to landfills where the plastic doesn't really do all that much harm. It was my impression that the vast majority of all plastic waste that ends up in the ocean comes from countries that don't have proper garbage management, where people just dump everything into the next river.
Given the problems with plastic waste how can anyone justify individually wrapped cheese slices? (Constructive answers only please. I am genuinely interested in seeing if there are any arguments in favour.)
Is plastic waste that much of a problem in first world countries? We're pretty diligent with transporting our garbage to landfills where the plastic doesn't really do all that much harm. It was my impression that the vast majority of all plastic waste that ends up in the ocean comes from countries that don't have proper garbage management, where people just dump everything into the next river.
I feel like it's an issue because everything is plastic wrapped these days. My local supermarket has plastic bags of apples, where every single apple is individually wrapped in more plastic - just WHY???? not to mention the stupid amount of plastic containers used for ham, cheese, bread....few of which are recyclable. I've had some deserts lately, where the outer packaging was plastic, then there was a plastic tray, holding two plastic cups, each with a plastic cover on top. It's an absolute madness, I feel like I'm shitting right on the environment just by having some dessert.
Not that long ago all ham/cheese would come wrapped in some waxed paper. Bread would come in a paper bag. Nowadays I'd estimate 80% of my refuse bag is just plastic. And sure, my recycling bin is full too - but the refuse bags are not going to be recycled, it just goes straight to the landfill, where the best hope for it is that it will be used for fuel at some point, like it is in Scandinavian countries. So yeah sure - it's not going in the ocean. But I don't think we're a lot better at it either.
Given the problems with plastic waste how can anyone justify individually wrapped cheese slices? (Constructive answers only please. I am genuinely interested in seeing if there are any arguments in favour.)
Is plastic waste that much of a problem in first world countries? We're pretty diligent with transporting our garbage to landfills where the plastic doesn't really do all that much harm. It was my impression that the vast majority of all plastic waste that ends up in the ocean comes from countries that don't have proper garbage management, where people just dump everything into the next river.
In short, yes.
The creation, processing, transportation and recycling of plastics is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions[0] and other forms of industrial pollution like water table pollution from landfills.
A conservative estimate[1] puts 10% of all plastics created (from first world countries too) being deposited in the worlds oceans, to disastrous effects[2]. The US economy is one of, if not the largest, contributing factor to the above pacific plastic waste problem.
Even if we're better at recycling plastics than some countries (still pretty terrible at only ~10%) and not letting them leak out into the environment, the sheer volume we consume and dispose of still makes the US and other Western countries by FAR the biggest contributors to plastics pollution.
This topic brings up the issue of wrapping in Japan. Japan is notorious for having excessive wrapping. Individually wrapped cookies in a box with a plastic tray to hold each cookie. The bottom half of the box is sealed with a plastic tear off cover. The top of the box slides over. Then the entire box is wrapped in paper. If you purchase if they will then put it in a branded paper bag. If it's raining they will then p…
In the 1970s, I remember being out of town and buying a bag of doughnuts at a grocery store. I walked to the cashier who promptly asked me if I wanted it in a bag. There was a pause and I didn't know how to reply.
Eventually I said, "It's already in a bag."
On another note, there's a hilarious scene of Archie Bunker (All in the Family, also from the 1970s) in the kitchen making hiimself a sandwich and trying to unwrap a single cheese slice. These were relatively new then I believe.
It's not altruism, they're just getting ahead of changes in the law. The EU announced[1] they were looking at banning single use plastics. It was after that announcement that lots of companies annoucned they were making changes. By getting ahead of the law they can brand it as doing something they didn't need to do. (Much like how UK phone companies announced they were "abolishing roaming charges" because they did it…
All of what you're describing sounds like PR to me. The fact of the matter is Starbucks are reducing plastic straws and there is no law telling them to do so.
It's partly PR, and partly the ability to do things on your own terms. You do not want regulations forced on you, that is bad for the bottom line. You need to be in control. This is the story with self-regulation across industries.
This topic brings up the issue of wrapping in Japan. Japan is notorious for having excessive wrapping. Individually wrapped cookies in a box with a plastic tray to hold each cookie. The bottom half of the box is sealed with a plastic tear off cover. The top of the box slides over. Then the entire box is wrapped in paper. If you purchase if they will then put it in a branded paper bag. If it's raining they will then p…
> some major major concerted national PR effort against it, getting celebrities, politicians, etc all on board pushing for months or years Why do you need PR when the parties responsible for all this wrapping are corporations ? It’s not the dagashi down the street giving you six layers of wrapping. When big corporations are doing something you don’t like, you don’t use PR to fix it. We’ve had plenty of PR about recyc…
> Why do you need PR when the parties responsible for all this wrapping are corporations?
Consider this from the perspective of the person in charge of packaging. They propose a change requiring costly re-tooling. It also changes the product's appearance and user's experience.
What is the benefit to this cost and this risk? Could the decrease in packaging give advantage to a competitor? If you deploy the marketing dollars to promote this trend, could a competitor piggyback on that by making the switch but not incurring the associated marketing costs? If they can't answer these questions--which itself costs time and money--the proposal is D.O.A.
> the way to make corporations change their behaviour, is to just make a law about it
How do you think one builds a coalition for getting a law passed?
It's not altruism, they're just getting ahead of changes in the law. The EU announced[1] they were looking at banning single use plastics. It was after that announcement that lots of companies annoucned they were making changes. By getting ahead of the law they can brand it as doing something they didn't need to do. (Much like how UK phone companies announced they were "abolishing roaming charges" because they did it…
All of what you're describing sounds like PR to me. The fact of the matter is Starbucks are reducing plastic straws and there is no law telling them to do so.
But it is the companies creating positive PR by getting ahead of expected pressure.
I think what the earlier poster was talking about is using the relationship the other way around: the public using their relationship with the company to say "I could always vote with my feet/money you know, you might want to consider...".
It amounts to the same thing in the end (the pressure they are trying to stay ahead of is created by governments reacting to social change and environmental issues) but the earlier post was talking about more direct action. The more direct route can be quicker, but it requires more effort (well, some effort from more of the public) to be truly effective.
All of what you're describing sounds like PR to me. The fact of the matter is Starbucks are reducing plastic straws and there is no law telling them to do so.
It's partly PR, and partly the ability to do things on your own terms. You do not want regulations forced on you, that is bad for the bottom line. You need to be in control. This is the story with self-regulation across industries.
> You do not want regulations forced on you, that is bad for the bottom line.
Also, self regulation can be safer in terms of come-back.
Where under an external regulatory pressure a misstep might result in some form of fine or at least a public outing. With self regulation many things can be more easily wrapped up with "oops, butter fingers! sorry, won't happen again" and all that might be more readily kept internal rather that having some form of issue reporting requirement enforced by the regulations.