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Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare'

bbc.co.uk

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

#111

Post by Mirioron »

Ensorceled wrote: post #53
rlpb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only containers which are infinitely recyclable are aluminum and coloured glass (nearly), but that takes energy. I've heard people say that the environmental cost of producing the clean water necessary to wash bottles for reuse is also harmful. I'd really like to see a side-by-side comparison of the environmental cost of the different available "obvious" options. > We need to just force manufacturers to bear th…

Energy is only an issue because we burn fossil fuels to generate energy, move bottles, etc. Clean energy is already our most important goal from a "survival of the species" point of view.

If energy use doesn't matter then neither does the whole recycling thing. If energy efficiency doesn't matter then we could simply build machines that comb through the environment to collect garbage, sort it, and make it reusable. But that would be insanely wasteful from an energy perspective. It's easier to preempt those challenges.

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

#112

Post by frosted-flakes »

bena wrote: post #83
Ensorceled wrote: post #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 (brow…

What makes colored glass more able to be recycled than clear glass? I'm curious, my intuition says it would be the opposite as I assume colored glass has other stuff in the glass to make it colored.

As I understand it, it's hard to keep coloured glass and other impurities out of the clear glass recycling stream, so the clear glass isn't clear any more. Coloured glass is just mixed together, which is why it's brown.

I would love to hear from someone who knows more.

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

#113

Post by pessimizer »

jdmichal wrote: post #91
m0nty wrote: post #85

> Kellogg's says these lids will still produce the distinctive "pop" associated with the product. No it isn't. Is this "pop" really such a big deal that they've been holding back on the redesign for so long?

Their marketing is based around that sound... So it probably is seen as a big deal to them. Probably some pop-psych idea around having that sound be associated to them through the commercials and usage.

I've never heard a pop during a lifetime of probably eating my bodyweight in Pringles. Either it's always been purely a marketing thing and they're finally actually engineering it into their packaging, or people are attacking Pringles lids in a way I do not understand.

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

#114

Post by Mirioron »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #57
alexanderthe- wrote: post #35

Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see a good reason why government can't introduce legislation to enforce standardized packaging across product "classes" to streamline reuse and recycling - for example, all soda bottles of size x, must come in shape y, made out of polymer z. The obvious financial impact would be companies having to potentially retool their factories to facilitate that, but there can also be sensible tax r…

> Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see a good reason why government can't introduce legislation to enforce ... You are being naive, even in the European Union which has a fairly contained level of corruption the Plastic and Petro-chemical lobby are incredibly strong. Many countries wanted to introduce a single-use plastic ban, almost immediately a campaign came out saying they were trying to kill people at hospitals wher…

>The natural progression of this is to create large plastic bootle/container deposits. Again this will never happen because it obviously stops the current externalization of costs in the plastic business.

We already have that in a lot of EU countries. Every soda bottle has an additional deposit cost (10 cents) on top of the soda itself. You pay that when you purchase it and get the 10 cents back when you take the bottle to a collection point for plastic bottles.

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

#115

Post by fuzzer37 »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #72
andrepd wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "chips model" works perfectly well for thousands of products. Want detergent? Bring a bottle to a machine that fills it up rather than taking home a brand new plastic bottle every time. Ditto for fruits and vegetables. Biscuits. Candy. Anything that doesn't need a plastic bag for health and safety reasons.

How would fill-your-own-bottle work with online shopping and home delivery, which more and more people are doing even for groceries?

Put a deposit on the bottle that it comes in, similar to how states like Michigan have a bottle deposit. Make it large enough that the consumer would be incentivized to return the bottle, even if they themselves don't actually re-use it. This way they could simply return the empty bottle, even if they don't plan on refilling it.

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

#116

Post by chongli »

pessimizer wrote: post #103
chongli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Only buy as many Pringles cans as you can reuse. So about six cans of Pringles per lifetime?

No, they wear out eventually and need replacing.

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

#117

Post by shawnz »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #68
srtjstjsj wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could, but no one wants to pay extra effort and energy cost when it's easier to make new glass from dirt.

No one wants to breath polluted air or drink polluted after, yet here we are. Rich producers just keep moving further away from the problems they create. Or they maintain their ignorance through a delicately balanced series of mental gymnastics.

Corporations don't have feelings... negative externalities need to be priced or there's no reason to expect a corporation to pay attention to them.

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

#118

Post by CrazyStat »

Fiahil wrote: post #105
jdmichal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... all soda bottles of size x, must come in shape y, made out of polymer z. This style of legislation is exactly how we get articles like this posted. Where we can't have new headlight technology in the US because the law exactly prescribes the types of headlights permitted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24042266 We need to find a way to manage this while still allowing science and technology to do its thin…

Like you would put `package-z >= v1.2.3` in your dependency manager, lawful requirements could be expressed like this. Maybe something to consider.

Unlike library version numbers, the properties of a plastic bottle that might be of interest are not one-dimensional and monotonically increasing.

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

#119

Post by cabaalis »

Fiahil wrote: post #105
jdmichal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... all soda bottles of size x, must come in shape y, made out of polymer z. This style of legislation is exactly how we get articles like this posted. Where we can't have new headlight technology in the US because the law exactly prescribes the types of headlights permitted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24042266 We need to find a way to manage this while still allowing science and technology to do its thin…

Like you would put `package-z >= v1.2.3` in your dependency manager, lawful requirements could be expressed like this. Maybe something to consider.

Create a recycling bureau that analyzes source materials and grades recycle-ability, and then in the law require certain grades for certain applications.

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

#120

Post by justinph »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #61
Ensorceled wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why couldn't jam manufacturers just use returnable bottles? The beer companies in Ontario do, soda bottles are returnable and reusable in many places.

They could, but no one wants to pay extra effort and energy cost when it's easier to make new glass from dirt.

Then this is a perfect case for regulation, to make it cost more to make new glass than re-use existing containers. It worked in the past just fine. But the first world incentivized energy production so much that we drove down the need to be efficient.
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