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Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

theguardian.com

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Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#161

Post by xorfish »

forgotmypw3 wrote: post #159
xorfish wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recycling is a lie for plastics, plastics can not be economically recycled. That is simply not true, just go to most of Europe. In Switzerland 83% of PET bottles get recycled. 0% ends up directly in landfills. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/fact-check_is-switzerland-the-w...

How much of the plastic packaging is PET?

For bottles it is probably the majority. Followed by glas for beer and wine and aluminum cans.

For the rest, plastic contains a good amount of energy. You can burn it and recover some energy from it. It also reduces the volume of the waste by 80%.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#162

Post by forgotmypw3 »

rorykoehler wrote: post #129
hombre_fatal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search shows that juices are at least as sugary if not moreso, especially grape juice. I live next to a shop that squeezes fresh juice, but I mix it with at least three parts carbonated water. Otherwise it's such an easy way to overconsume calories. And possibly the least fulfilling way, as well.

Fruit juice is actually nutritious though. What nutrients are you getting from a can of coke?

One can of coke provides 75% RDV for monsantium and 66% RDV corn syrup.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#163

Post by tapland »

MivLives wrote: post #94
tapland wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because reusable usually means crushing the class and making new bottles. Recycled aluminium saves more energy than the glass process.

They're talking about returnables which is how beer used to come. Imagine instead of just recycling your beer bottles you hauled it back to the store for it to be sent back to vendor. I've worked around refillable milk containers and it was a pain in the ass, beer I can only imagine is more so.

It would be absolutely nuts if anyone wanted to use non-standard bottles or specific glass colorings. A standardized bottle that everyone used (only label as differentiation) would be cool.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#164

Post by titzer »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #128
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on. It's abundantly clear that placing blame and expectation entirely on the shoulders of consumers is bollocks. Humans drop litter - just look at any festival, concert, or sports match. When it was your granddad it was mostly paper bags, maybe wrapped in newspaper, maybe a few crown corks. The glass got carefully taken home as there was a hefty deposit on those beer bottles! Now it's knee-deep single use eve…

There are plenty of places in the world where littering is not socially acceptable and happens less than other places. What is the difference between these places? I think it's the people, not the material their garbage is made of.

> where littering is not socially acceptable and happens less than other places.

It's great that there are places where littering is much less due to social norms. But it's not zero. People litter. Period.

To a first approximation, humans can be modeled as points wandering around on a map, and at each timestep there is some nonzero probability they will just drop garbage on the ground. This is true the world over, in every single country I've been, on essentially every hiking trail, no matter how remote or inaccessible. If you were to have a heatmap of litter the world over, it would very closely approximate the simple heatmap of where people have been. Just look at any stretch of highway. Unless it has just been cleaned up by a very thorough cleanup crew, you will find trash. And this is where people are riding around in vehicles that could as well just keep their trash in the backseat. People go out of their way to throw that shit out the window. People can't even get trash into a fricking trash can. It will literally be sitting on the ground next to a trash can.

People are trash monkeys. You can knock one or two orders of magnitude off the litter problem with education, societal norms, fines, etc. But people are trash monkeys, and whereever they go, they fucking litter. It's as inescapable as nuclear decay. It's just a function of probability.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#165

Post by dingaling »

Zenst wrote: post #95
flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #50

Thank goodness. Finally, somebody with some clout is pointing fingers at the largest contributor to garbage... the corporations who produce it. I live in Canada and Tim Horton's cups literally litter every street corner in every big city in our country. I have always thought that they should be responsible for the cleanup of those cups. It is absolutely their fault that their customers are throwing their products ont…

"It is absolutely their fault that their customers are throwing their products onto our ground." WAT! A company is not responsible for it's irresponsible consumers! Also their no scapegoat for irresponsible people who litter. That is the crux of the issue here. Rallying against a large corporation because people litter with their product is effectively excusing people who litter. That is wrong - don't go there.

> A company is not responsible for it's irresponsible consumers!

No but they are responsible for foisting externalities onto society in order to save a few cents per transaction.

If they only sold coffee in steel thermal capped mugs, for $5 each, then the litter problem would evaporate. But that would require more expensive logistics and storage and transactional overhad.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#166

Post by neverartful »

neverartful wrote: post #36
redwall_hp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass bottles weigh about 10 times more than plastic bottles. Enjoy all the extra CO2 from shipping.

What extra CO2 from shipping? When Coca Cola was distributed in glass bottles there were local (or regional) bottling centers. The Coca Cola syrup was distributed to these bottling centers and they're the ones that filled bottles for local/regional distribution. I don't recall any problems with CO2.

Replying to my own comment. Initially, I was thinking that the mention of CO2 was related to carbonation in the drink. It's now clear to me that it was reference to CO2 emissions of transporting goods that would be significantly heavier.

It seems to me that if CO2 emissions for distributing heavier, reusable glass containers is a significant problem for our society, I can't imagine what we'll do with all the other (unrelated) things we have (and do) that have much bigger problems with emissions.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#167

Post by TeMPOraL »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #128
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh come on. It's abundantly clear that placing blame and expectation entirely on the shoulders of consumers is bollocks. Humans drop litter - just look at any festival, concert, or sports match. When it was your granddad it was mostly paper bags, maybe wrapped in newspaper, maybe a few crown corks. The glass got carefully taken home as there was a hefty deposit on those beer bottles! Now it's knee-deep single use eve…

There are plenty of places in the world where littering is not socially acceptable and happens less than other places. What is the difference between these places? I think it's the people, not the material their garbage is made of.

Law and/or religion. I.e. well-enforced top-down rules. I sincerely doubt there's any difference in people.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#168

Post by easytiger »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #125
RobertRoberts wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really debatable about "who" left the garbage on the ground? Even if something only lasts a couple years, do we still want biodegrading trash littering everything? (we have raw food products right now, I wouldn't want those on the beach either...)

Oh come on. It's abundantly clear that placing blame and expectation entirely on the shoulders of consumers is bollocks. Humans drop litter - just look at any festival, concert, or sports match. When it was your granddad it was mostly paper bags, maybe wrapped in newspaper, maybe a few crown corks. The glass got carefully taken home as there was a hefty deposit on those beer bottles! Now it's knee-deep single use eve…

> It's abundantly clear that placing blame and expectation entirely on the shoulders of consumers is bollocks. Humans drop litter

That statement is false. Not all humans drop litter. In the west it is widely taught as wrong, often punishable by fines. Find me the person who states they should have a right to litter please. Not to mention the fact that biogradable packagi\ ng does little to nothing by way of helping littered refuse. It will have to be collected anyway.

There is no philosophy whereby you can excuse the individual action in this case except when trying to justify a wide range of other things as the basis of a broken polemic. Your last sentiment in that post entirely confirms this.

> Not only should it be outright illegal, countless industry's execs are deserving of lengthy spells in prison or a law that says you can chuck used plastic in their mansion's garden. :)

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#169

Post by siruncledrew »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #153
jaredklewis wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add Japan to the list. Littering is extremely rare. When traveling, I've been impressed by the cleanliness of Zurich, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and several cities in Germany. If as a society we can't do something as simple as not throw garbage on the ground, I think we have a very bleak future.

Never visited Japan, but when I have been in Germany, Denmark and Sweden (nearest I've been to Finland!) they seemed to employ more cleaning - or at least more noticeably - than I expect to see in say modern day UK. I do notice, because UK and many other places are bleak in terms of litter compared to what I remember from childhood and early adulthood, in both extent and type. Nowhere has been nearly as bad about lit…

The US has a lot of variation in litter depending on where you are at, so YMMV. In my experience, go to a nice business district or more upper-class neighborhood/suburb - the streets are well-kept and generally low in litter to maintain a good impression of the area. Go to an industrial zone or lower-class part of town (i.e. off the usual path for tourists and middle-upper class people) and there's trash scattered everywhere. The trash just sits there ignored because, for lack of a better way to say it, there is no one on hand whose job it is to pickup the trash.

There are still places that have a "don't give a shit" attitude about litter, and people are also reluctant to go out of their way to pick up litter without incentive. In my opinion, there is somewhat of an expectation that addressing litter is the task of some third-party to take care of (e.g. government, groundskeepers, trash company, etc) - so it doesn't directly fall on the individual. In other words, "somebody else will clean it up" mentality.

In those places that already have a lot of litter, some people are assholes and just say "fuck it, what's an extra unit of litter on top of the pile". Other times, litter unintentionally gets scattered about from the wind and such, yet it's mostly ignored as to not deal with it. As aesthetically awful as it looks and environmentally damaging, people put horse blinders on to tune it out of their lives even though it's all around.

If I had to compare with other countries:

- Japan doesn't even have trashcans throughout, and the onus is on the individual to 'do the right thing'. (Gold Standard)

- Germany has trashcans, and individuals will generally follow the instructions for disposal. (Silver Standard)

- US has trashcans, and as long as individuals get the trash in/on/near the trashcan it's 'good enough'. (Bronze Standard)

- India/SE Asia the trashcan is all around you.

Re: Coca-Cola most common source of packaging pollution on UK beaches: study

#170

Post by jgtrosh »

jaredklewis wrote: post #141
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's Singapore and...? That's about it. Of course as well as extreme and draconian legislation, like banning gum, they're a tiny city-state. Yet Singapore employs vast numbers of cleaners and street sweepers clearing up - which surely shouldn't be necessary? Far more per-capita than any Western city. So even they seem to recognise it will happen anyway.

Add Japan to the list. Littering is extremely rare. When traveling, I've been impressed by the cleanliness of Zurich, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and several cities in Germany. If as a society we can't do something as simple as not throw garbage on the ground, I think we have a very bleak future.

Why make your vision of human success hinge on a sudden global capacity to not litter objects for which there is zero incentive not to litter? Think about all the great or crazy human successes; do you think they were enabled by perfect individuals? We build a society to make individual failings obsolete, the opposite (upholding society through global individual rigour) is not sustainable.
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