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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'

#161

Post by steve_adams_86 »

strogonoff wrote: post #150
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…

On board with mandating recycling and encouraging use of infinitely recyclable materials in container manufacturing. A couple nits to pick, though. – You have to be specific when advocating for reuse. Some like to keep using—for long periods of time—bottles made from cheap thin disposable plastic. That plastic, when repeatedly emptied, may quickly accumulate tiny cracks and leech chemicals, which in case of P(V)C may…

It gives me the creeps every time I see someone heating up their lunch in an old plastic container. Old dairy containers with snap lids are very common. It must be leaching so much garbage into the food. I can’t tell if that’s phobia due to bad science or these people are actually gradually poisoning themselves.

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

#162

Post by Scoundreller »

dvdkhlng wrote: post #36
dmos62 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are really good points. A good approach to incentivize everyone to do the right thing is to make it the least expensive option. That either requires some lucky tech breakthrough (super unlikely) or a strong government. A recyclability tax, where the producer pays a tax that corresponds to how much it will cost to recycle their product. Maybe collect data of how much of their product is actually recycled. That w…

We have something like what you propose in germany [1]. Basically it causes the producers of packaging to end up paying for the disposal of the corresponding trash. This creates an incentitive for producers to make the packaging less wasteful. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dot_(symbol)#German_dual...

Do German manufacturers still pull tricks like selling a slightly smaller amount of pasta/sauce/cheese/crisps/juice in the same sized container at the same price?

Happens all the time in Canada/USA. Funny how they switch to the common metric or imperial sizes where it fits their interests. E.g. a lot of pastas went from 1kg to 908g, while pop bottles went from 560mL to 500mL.

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

#163

Post by luckylion »

Klinky wrote: post #153
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's real easy to say when you work in an air conditioned office and shop at whole foods. Sure the demographics most represented here could absorb the cost but these demographics are a minority in the first word and a tiny minority globally. Economic stability is what permits people to have the free time to care about abstract things like "the environment". Raise the cost of food, raise the cost of fuel, "internali…

We're in an era of companies worth trillions and their owners worth billions. It's silly to say we have too few resources to provide enough economic stability for people to care about the environment, meanwhile mega yachts are being made and islands are being purchased by an uber wealthy elite class, and there are people who will defend that behavior, all because they have a lot of money, so it must be okay. Market d…

Those that buy yachts and islands are a lot less frequent though. It's obscene, I agree, but it's not like everybody was well-off if you just nationalized Jeff Bezoz' wealth.

You don't have to wait for the market, you just need to make sure that proposed policies aren't massively affecting the lower classes. Food insecurity isn't a good foundation for a stable and peaceful society. When you're artificially generating it, you might want to take care of the poverty first, not the other way around.

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

#164

Post by amatecha »

mschuster91 wrote: post #106
conradfr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is not necessarily safe depending on the type of plastic (not sure how it goes in Turkey though).

... and depending on the type of food. IIRC acidic foods should not be mixed with some plastics (and also not with aluminium foil).

Huh I'd be interested to know more about the aluminum foil, since at a place I regularly get takeout from they wrap some of the items in aluminum foil (to keep it warm)...

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

#165

Post by R0b0t1 »

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…

The problem is, if the jars last over a century you don't sell many jars.

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

#166

Post by R0b0t1 »

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.

Glass is actually the most recyclable material with the highest difference in energy put in between new and reclaimed. I think the issue is not many plants are set up for recycling, and it is extra work to make pretty glass from reclaim glass.

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

#167

Post by dfxm12 »

crazygringo wrote: post #96
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…

Sure, but all the glass that gets used for reuse is for liquids , which are also all heavy to begin with. Do you have examples of successful packaging reuse for solid dry food such as Pringles? Or cereal? Or sugar? Or chocolate? (And that's before even getting into packaging of meat, fish, etc.)

I bring mason jars and reusable produce bags to the store to buy coffee, rice, green beans and other solids. The store even ran a promotion to give away the produce bags, so a lot of people in the neighborhood have them. I agree, this might not work too well for meat, but as they say, "perfect is the enemy of good enough".

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

#168

Post by alltakendamned »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #165
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…

The problem is, if the jars last over a century you don't sell many jars.

That’s only a problem for very very few people aka the shareholders. Everyone else wins.

It’s the standard modus operandi for most companies by now. Internalized profits, externalized costs. And there are very few products for which full lifecycle costs are included in the price.

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

#169

Post by wink »

dvdkhlng wrote: post #36
dmos62 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are really good points. A good approach to incentivize everyone to do the right thing is to make it the least expensive option. That either requires some lucky tech breakthrough (super unlikely) or a strong government. A recyclability tax, where the producer pays a tax that corresponds to how much it will cost to recycle their product. Maybe collect data of how much of their product is actually recycled. That w…

We have something like what you propose in germany [1]. Basically it causes the producers of packaging to end up paying for the disposal of the corresponding trash. This creates an incentitive for producers to make the packaging less wasteful. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Dot_(symbol)#German_dual...

Kinda bullshit though, it's been around for ages and in many regions there's no proper waste management.

Where I live you have to collect it separately and bring it somewhere on your own. The smaller towns next to my town oftn have this as a third/fourth bin next to general waste/paper/biological.

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

#170

Post by II2II »

remote_phone wrote: post #121
pkphilip wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the key issues with using bottles is the cost, weight and the fact that there is a lot of breakage. The weight alone increases the cost of the supply chain by several times. One key invention which could really help here is flexible glass packaging. Interestingly, one of the lost technologies from the Roman era is flexible glass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_glass Corning does have flexible glass, bu…

Let the costs increase then. All food containers must be recyclable or compostable. This should be a rule across the globe. We should also ban single-use plastic. If costs need to go up, then let them go up. Consumers need to understand the costs of their consumption and we can’t destroy our planet so that corporations can be more profitable.

> We should also ban single-use plastic. If costs need to go up, then let them go up. Consumers need to understand the costs of their consumption and we can’t destroy our planet so that corporations can be more profitable.

The hitch is affordability for people with lower incomes. While it is easy to be critical about single serving beverages and over packages potato chips, the vast majority of goods found in most grocery stores are packaged.

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