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Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

bbc.co.uk

11–20 of 401 posts

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#11
I wish there was more (food) packaging regulation to limit the types of materials, how they are combined and how they must be reused or recycled. I try to avoid, reuse, refill, recycle but it still makes me sad how much material in my own home is discarded in ‘recycling’ but probably in reality goes straight to landfill.

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#12
post #2

Fred Baur, the inventor of the original Pringles can, was buried in one of them (on his request)

Like, buried in a giant replica of the can as a coffin? Or cremated and put in a normal size can?

"Some of Baur's ashes were buried in a Pringles can at his request."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Baur

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#14
Recycling mentioned on Hacker News always depresses me.

The way problems with it are treated as fundamentally unfixable always strikes me as against the site's ethos, yet people love pointing them out.

Recycling just gets dumped in landfill!

Ok, lets ban that.

But, actually, its more environmentally friendly to landfill it!

Are you sure? Science doesnt really agree. But anyway, can we make recycling more efficient?

No, stop trying to improve things. Recycling is bad. If it made sense the free market would already do it!

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#15
post #6

I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it. This is one of the big problems I have with recycling. When I was a kid in school (throughout the 90’s), we learned the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. Notice that recycle is last on the l…

> I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it.

Recyclers are downstream from consumers. They can’t stop consumers from throwing away their pringles cans, and until Kellogg’s starts bulk-selling Pringles in bags… people will throw cans away, there’s noly do many cans you can find a use for.

I can’t find any specific production numbers but the internet tells me Kellogg’s sells for billions in snacks and pringles are a significant fraction of that. A Pringle can is a buck or two, meaning 6 figures Pringle cans being sold every year, if not 7.

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#16
We need to focus on the second R, reuse.

I have mason jars that my grandmother and then my mother used for pickling. The only waste is the rubber ring which needs to be replaced occasionally and THAT could be recycled. Many of these bottles have been used for 80+ years now. I have a few Ball jars which my GREAT grandmother used 100+ years ago.

Beer bottles in Canada are reused dozens of times and are recyclable (brown glass) when broken or worn out.

The only containers which are infinitely recyclable are aluminum and coloured glass (nearly), but that takes energy.

Plastics are not currently infinitely recyclable as the polymer chains break down. A lot of plastic is simply not recyclable at all in most of North America [1]

We need to just force manufacturers to bear the costs of recycling their products 100%: everybody would switch to reusable and this current clam shell packaging disaster would come to a close.

[1] https://apps.npr.org/plastics-recycling/

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#17
post #6

I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it. This is one of the big problems I have with recycling. When I was a kid in school (throughout the 90’s), we learned the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. Notice that recycle is last on the l…

> I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it. Recyclers are downstream from consumers. They can’t stop consumers from throwing away their pringles cans, and until Kellogg’s starts bulk-selling Pringles in bags… people will throw ca…

Maybe they can progressively make Pringles cans bigger so you can store your old cans inside your new cans.

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#18

Recycling mentioned on Hacker News always depresses me. The way problems with it are treated as fundamentally unfixable always strikes me as against the site's ethos, yet people love pointing them out. Recycling just gets dumped in landfill! Ok, lets ban that. But, actually, its more environmentally friendly to landfill it! Are you sure? Science doesnt really agree. But anyway, can we make recycling more efficient? N…

Bury it until it makes sense to mine it

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#19
post #6

I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it. This is one of the big problems I have with recycling. When I was a kid in school (throughout the 90’s), we learned the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. Notice that recycle is last on the l…

> I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it. Recyclers are downstream from consumers. They can’t stop consumers from throwing away their pringles cans, and until Kellogg’s starts bulk-selling Pringles in bags… people will throw ca…

That’s where the first R comes in. Only buy as many Pringles cans as you can reuse. People don’t want to do that either, though, because Pringles are addictive. That may be the root problem.

There’s no way they’ll sell Pringles in bags though; they’re way too delicate for anything but a purpose-built rigid container.

Re: Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

#20
post #6

I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it. This is one of the big problems I have with recycling. When I was a kid in school (throughout the 90’s), we learned the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. Notice that recycle is last on the l…

What do you use Pringles cans for that makes them so useful: say you were buying one per week?
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