Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare' • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by bserge » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #93

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…

> ... 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…

I'm not sure you need those LED/LASER headlights... I don't understand what the manufacturers are thinking, those lights are incredibly bright, dangerously so - how are they even legal?

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

#192

Post by qwertygnu » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #179

kbos87 wrote: post #4

If you want to have your eyes opened about just how little of the material you probably think you are recycling actually gets recycled, watch the recent Frontline episode called “Plastic Wars”. The sad truth is that while recycling is worthwhile, it’s also a woefully insufficient solution that has been held up by the petroleum industry as a cure all to prevent a backlash against plastic. Even products that are labele…

>while recycling is worthwhile, I'm not sure it's that worthwhile for most things. Glass is made of sand, which we have plenty of. Cardboard is trees which are renewable. Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it. Metal is rarer and some of that is worthwhile to recycle but again not like we're running out of iron ore. We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in. The thing…

> Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it.

> We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in.

> The thing we should focus on is carbon footprint.

Is this a joke?

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

#193

Post by alexanderthe- » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #62

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…

> made out of polymer z. Wow, sounds like you really want to encourage innovation in materials. The variety of polymers we have serve multiple uses and different functions because of their numerous unique properties (and costs).

I believe innovation would be encouraged by the incentive to capture a market for a specific use case with an innovation in either process, material, or diminished environmental impacts.

Corporations (and citizens) need to be accountable for making decisions that go against societies best interests - the current infatuation with profit at all costs is eerily similar to the proliferation of cells at all costs in cancer.

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

#194

Post by analog31 » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

kthejoker2 wrote: post #88

My immediate thought is it sounds like Kellogg's/Pringles could get a lot of free positive marketing by just switching to a "100% biodegradable" bag? Nobody likes Pringles because they're in a tube.

Pringles are a good example where the packaging is the product to a large degree.

I was around when Pringles were introduced, and saw the ads on TV. The tube was central to the marketing appeal. There were already reconstituted potato chips in bags on the market, though I can't for the life of me remember the name.

Pringles were molded to a uniform size and shape, and the tube protected them from breakage. There was a satisfying snap when you opened the lid.

There are other examples where the packaging is the product, such as "Lunchables" from Oscar Mayer.

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

#195

Post by treis » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

qwertygnu wrote: post #192

treis wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>while recycling is worthwhile, I'm not sure it's that worthwhile for most things. Glass is made of sand, which we have plenty of. Cardboard is trees which are renewable. Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it. Metal is rarer and some of that is worthwhile to recycle but again not like we're running out of iron ore. We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in. The thing…

> Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it. > We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in. > The thing we should focus on is carbon footprint. Is this a joke?

... No. Which part do you disagree with?

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

#196

Post by sidpatil » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #162

dvdkhlng wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is known as shrinkflation.

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

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

#197

Post by bserge » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

Schwan wrote: post #46

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #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? N…

I grew up in a normal german household on the 'countryside'. I alwasy recycled. Never thought about it much and my family is not 'alternative or whatever'. 3 Years ago i see a documentation telling me, that dark plastic can't be recycled and gets burned. Thin plastic can't be recycled and will be burned. We have a system called 'green point' which basically means that the producer has to pay a little bit of money for…

To be fair, 40% is better than 0%

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

#198

Post by scrooched_moose » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #164

mschuster91 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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)...

It's well established that some trace amount of aluminum leaches into your food when using foil, and it's more pronounced with acidic foods.

As far as I'm aware there's no evidence of any health effects of this (still trace) amount. The main hypothesis is aluminum may somehow be linked to Alzheimer's, and dietary aluminum may be the source of that.

The Alzheimer's Association rather definitively says there is no known link and most current evidence doesn't support this: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-an...

Every other health effect I've seen hypothesized seems even more fringe.

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

#199

Post by chongli » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

learnstats2 wrote: post #20

chongli wrote: 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?

I don’t buy one per week. Maybe a few cans per year. I use them for storing sleeves of soda crackers (they fit perfectly even though the crackers are squares). They’re also good for storing snacks of various kinds, dry spaghetti noodles (or any pasta, really). Pretty much any dry goods that you don’t want crushed are a great fit!

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

#200

Post by Robotbeat » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

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…

PVC and BPA are not common in disposable thin plastic bottles nowadays. Reusing them is much more efficient than a metal water bottle (that also Typically has a plastic liner and other plastic parts, if your Amistics for some reason doesnt allow plastic) in terms of embodied energy and total mass of material.

I like mason jars because they actually do last a long time and are pretty cheap, but don’t hate on reusing cheap plastic bottles!