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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'

#301

Post by shortandsweet »

tomlor wrote: post #291
staplers wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Oregon it is amazing how effective this program is. You never see cans or bottles as litter. Another effect is it lowers your garbage/recycling bill as homeless will often rummage through your bins for cans/bottles freeing up bin space so you never really have an overflow problem of glass or cans.

The pickers in my neighborhood are a nuisance. If my recyling bin is full, then they move good recyclables from my recycling bin to my trash bin in order to try to find cans and bottles. Often, then don't move them back when they're done rummaging.

So why not provide a bin for them for the deposit recyclables? I'll tell you what, if you would like to pick out your preferred bin, show me it, and I'll pay for it for you. If that's really your problem then I can make the effort with a simple and easy solution.

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

#302

Post by Nasrudith »

eloff wrote: post #238
michaelt wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter if people like it or not, Does if you want it done by elected politicians in a properly functioning democracy.

I don't think that policies like carbon taxes are that terribly unpopular (depends on the location.) But even then democratic governments do things that are unpopular all the time. I don't think it's untenable. But even if it cost politicians their re-election, it's still the right thing to do.

Gillet jaunes disagree very strongly. Even if an idea is popular in principle and is a good idea there can be tons of anger over whose particular ox is gored by it, regardless of how skewed the priorities may be in the grand scheme of things if it is perceived as "unfair".

From barely visible offshore wind turbine complaints in Martha's Vineyard, to reluctance of former coal miners to retrain to less lucrative industries to the original luddites solving problems can piss /a lot/ of people off.

It doesn't make them non-viable but it isn't as easy as you would think from superficial popularity.

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

#303

Post by TeMPOraL »

adingus wrote: post #17
masklinn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The traditional thing to do is to make packaging smaller (while keeping price the same) - so you'd get to store your new cans in your old cans.

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

#304

Post by petre »

mattmanser wrote: post #174
stx wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is we (the US) did do this at one point in time. When I was a kid you could buy a coke in a glass bottle and return it when done to be re-used by the manufacturer. For some reason we stopped. We should bring that back. When I was in Mexico around the early 2000 they still did this. When you buy a drink you could return it for a few cents back from the vender.

"We" didn't stop, it was cheaper for Coca-Cola to use plastic. Coca-Cola did it. Stop blaming consumers for corporate choices to slightly increase profits. Like in the UK, Tesco have just inexplicably switched from using cardboard egg containers to plastic ones. Is that my fault?

A plastic tax would solve this. Make plastic containers at least as expensive as cardboard or aluminium cans through added taxes.

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

#305

Post by refurb »

stx wrote: post #157
Ensorceled wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The “first world” really needs to get it’s act together on this.

The thing is we (the US) did do this at one point in time. When I was a kid you could buy a coke in a glass bottle and return it when done to be re-used by the manufacturer. For some reason we stopped. We should bring that back. When I was in Mexico around the early 2000 they still did this. When you buy a drink you could return it for a few cents back from the vender.

Moving to plastic significantly reduced the cost of transportation and the resulting CO2 emissions (but increased CO2 through production of plastic - net?).

Better to haul a trailer full of coke that 98% product and 2% plastic than one that’s 90% product and 10% glass.

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

#306

Post by Spare_account »

chongli wrote: post #116
pessimizer wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Which is where the featured article is relevant

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

#307

Post by refurb »

rlpb wrote: post #37
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 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…

Indeed, you need to look at total impact, not just the impact of switching a raw material.

A college prof did an analysis of plastic versus biodegradable “plastic”.

The biodegradable plastic took far more energy and released much more CO2 than just regular plastic.

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

#308

Post by bagels »

margo209320 wrote: post #84
masklinn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> meaning 6 figures Pringle cans being sold every year, if not 7 The article states "three million cans are made across Europe every day". That's 10 figures annually in Europe alone.

What kind of millions are we talking?

It's probably 3,000,000, which is 6 or 7 figures.

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

#309

Post by Nasrudith »

KarlKode wrote: post #265
eloff wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if people like it or not, you just make it so companies or people have to pay for the negative externalities through taxes or regulation and the problem is solved. The market will naturally rebalance and innovate under the new constraints. If only we had responsible, effective government with the balls to do what has to be done to protect the future. This business of short term thinking and to hell…

But isn't the whole thing "now oil and oil-based-products are bad" kind of unfair to all the developing nations? We, the rich western countries, we're able to profit of the non-sustainable benefits we got from fossil fuels and their products, while a large part of the earth's population didn't profit nearly as much as we have. This is a line of thinking I've seen underrepresented in a lot of the discussions about the…

They are also stuck for better or worse as "technological vassals" as not driving research and development. This isn't a slight on their intellectual capabilities at all but an acknowledgement of realities and scales - they are just as human as us. Third world nations don't develop their own novel weapons systems beyond guerilla repurposing like technical trucks - they don't have the budget for it. Clever individuals can still come up with something new but they lack the institutional support for it to be "big".

One silver lining they get is R&D of others can help them skip the step some steps compared to the past west's development paths. Cell phones connected the third world in absense of wires and individual autorouting compared to party lines and operator based dispatches. Something similar is happening to a degree with renewables.

Renewables are a nice fit to them in several ways, the storage and grid free unreliability is unfortunately nothing new to them. It is a bit of a situational dubious blessing like "We don't need to worry about chemo being carcogenic - you already have stage 3 cancer". Not ideal but few things are for the third world even if they are improving.

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

#310

Post by at-fates-hands »

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…

I always found it fascinating that in the 70's and 80's everybody moved away from glass and paper to plastic. I mean literally anything that could be converted to plastic from paper or glass was.

Do you think we'll ever revert back to just paper and glass again?

We are making some good strides with paper straws and the like, and mandating people bring reusable bags to the grocery stores - but I still see many of the stores I shop at still use plastic bags.

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