Meta comment, but for any article saying: "Could ...... ?" 95% of the time, the answer is no
Fully encapsulated by Betteridge's law.
This is such a Hacker News meme comment that never adds anything of value every time it gets posted.
Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
21–30 of 141 posts
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#22No time soon...
Plastics are mostly a by product of petroleum refining so it's hard to beat the economic factors. And the manufacturing machines have been in use for so long that they are completely paid for so adding one more plastic whatever is relatively cheap compared to any new gizmo.
At this point the only way to stop plastic products is to subsidize a replacement to the point of making it cheaper than plastic or to make it illegal. Both of which are unlikely to happen now.
When looking at plastic replacements, we need to look at the economics as well as the replacement.
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#23Quoted post unavailable.
If you want people to stop making plastic, you need to come up with another material that will work for the various things plastic is used for. Hence this article.
It’s worth noting also that it’s not really the consumer plastic waste that’s the big problem. The Atlantic garbage barge in the 1970s made people panicked about a lack of landfill capacity, but the truth of the barge was more a political dispute more than anything else and we have the ability to keep handling solid waste for ages (composting is still important in that it will reduce methane emissions from landfills, but it’s not important in terms of reducing landfill use).
The bigger issue is that small pieces of plastic from the manufacturing process end up as environmental waste. I did some volunteer cleanup a dozen years ago near Ballona Creek and the amount of tiny pieces (bean-sized and smaller) of plastic and styrofoam along the creek was just mind-blowing. If you find yourself near any plastic manufacturing facility, you’ll see lots of tiny bits of plastic all over the place. Sawdust and metal shavings get dispersed similarly, but they tend to have less of an environmental impact.
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#24Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#25Plastic packaging protects food from moisture and dirt. If you make the packaging out of a water-soluble material and then eat it, surely that's almost completely useless? Like, now you need some kind of additional outer wrapper to stop your edible packaging from getting contaminated. The article mentions muffin liners as an alternative use case, but those are usually made of thin paper and are already compostable.
Muffin liners actually make more sense to me. It’s often hard to get a muffin liner off of the muffin without losing a lot of muffin. An edible liner that has a good texture might have some actual value.
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you want people to stop making plastic, you need to come up with another material that will work for the various things plastic is used for. Hence this article.
Corn starch is already a really good alternative, we use it in our house for bin liners, I wonder why it's not more popular as food packaging. Perhaps it has issues with durability over the time periods for which shelf storage is required.
Corn starch sounds good put growing corn is energy intensive. Right now, it takes a great deal of carbon based fuels to grow it. Plus every ear of corn that's grown for a plastic replacement is one less that's grow for food. It's an expensive trade off. Re-use and no-use of plastic is probably the best way to deal with plastic trash.
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#27Pardon the ignorance but aside from cost, what is wrong with using glass? Why not just make a ton of glass from cheap sand and scale/automate it to make it cheaper?
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#28Pardon the ignorance but aside from cost, what is wrong with using glass? Why not just make a ton of glass from cheap sand and scale/automate it to make it cheaper?
Glass is heavy and would increase the carbon footprint of some items.
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the idea is that it becomes like fruit and vegetables. You purchase them unwrapped, wash them, and eat them. This would have implications on the supply chain of course to try and keep these items clean. It could also replace individually wrapped items, such as in a box of cereal bars the individual bars wouldn't need plastic wrap.
My protein bars need individual wrap. I am not putting them 'naked' inside of my hiking backpack. Not to mention how nasty the last one is when it takes you 2 months to finish a box... All of them exposed to air? Thanks but no thanks.
The bars wouldn't be exposed to air, that's what edible wraps like what is described in the article are for.
For backpacks and the like you will need something else to keep it clean, same as you would for an apple. May I present to you the lunch box, already used by 100s of millions.
Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?
#30Pardon the ignorance but aside from cost, what is wrong with using glass? Why not just make a ton of glass from cheap sand and scale/automate it to make it cheaper?
Glass is incredible carbon intensive to make, and takes practically forever to break down. It's also fragile.