41–50 of 141 posts
Why don’t we just burn plastic for energy. We burn hydrocarbons for energy anyway, why not substitute some coal for plastic waste. Not an expert on this matter but I am pretty sure most hydrocarbons can be burnt pretty cleanly in the right conditions.
Pardon 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.
Pardon 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?
Why don’t we just burn plastic for energy. We burn hydrocarbons for energy anyway, why not substitute some coal for plastic waste. Not an expert on this matter but I am pretty sure most hydrocarbons can be burnt pretty cleanly in the right conditions.
And for what benefit? Plastics in a land fill are a form of carbon sequestration if the alternative is burning them or fresh hydrocarbons.
IMO the value in replacing plastic use has very little to do with energy/CO2. It's more related to other health/environmental effects (microplastics, etc).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
But would you put an apple “naked”? A cucumber? A tomato? At least for me - when I hike I usually have a box and put all of those items there “raw” - the box protects them from mechanical forces but I don’t need to individually wrap my apples inside that box. Having other edible things have such an edible covering would be amazing actually.
Pardon 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.
Plastic 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.
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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.
If you care about avoiding "processed foods" in other domains and are consuming shrink-wrapped bars with a shelf life of 2+ months: here be dragons!
I store ours in a glass container the refrigerator, where they're individually wrapped in butcher paper. I'd consider them good outside of the fridge (in the paper) for 32 hours, inside the fridge for a week or two. Making a batch takes about 10 minutes + overnight refrigeration, and the recipe is trivial to scale-up/down in size.
They're certainly not as convenient or robust as shrink-wrapped lara bars, but we're not frequently in situations where the diff disappoints, ymmv.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
FWIW, if you're curious about the insights from somebody who's crusty enough to make their own protein bars :) If you care about avoiding "processed foods" in other domains and are consuming shrink-wrapped bars with a shelf life of 2+ months: here be dragons! I store ours in a glass container the refrigerator, where they're individually wrapped in butcher paper. I'd consider them good outside of the fridge (in the pa…
I expect the ones made without processed ingredients like protein powders to be especially in that category. Not that there's anything necessarily bad about that, but it does bug me when folk label products as "high" in protein when all the protein comes from nuts, legumes, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
FWIW, if you're curious about the insights from somebody who's crusty enough to make their own protein bars :) If you care about avoiding "processed foods" in other domains and are consuming shrink-wrapped bars with a shelf life of 2+ months: here be dragons! I store ours in a glass container the refrigerator, where they're individually wrapped in butcher paper. I'd consider them good outside of the fridge (in the pa…