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Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

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Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#111

Post by dr_dshiv »

cseleborg wrote: post #101
dr_dshiv wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But surely there is some point to it all. They point of the plastic is not for the consumer but the grocer and transporter. There should be some cost-benefit analysis — not just “all plastic must be avoided.” That’s a bit much.

Is it a bit much, though? Unlike me, my children will never experience their home planet without microplastics everywhere, from the highest peak down to the deepest trench in the ocean. They will have to pay a hefty price for what we and those before us have done to the environment. I think that's a bit much. Where's the cost-benefit for them of wrapped cucumbers? Like I said, there are applications where plastic is…

Here is a rundown of the cost-benefit. I think it helps explain why plastic is used!

https://www.forkranger.com/plastic-wrapping-of-cucumbers-cle...

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#112

Post by rwmj »

cseleborg wrote: post #88
kupfer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper packaging of Wasa has a thin plastic liner, which you can see stretching by slowly tearing the paper. It is probably better that the thicker FinnCrisp plastic, but Wasa paper does not belong in the paper bin for recycling.

That was news to me, although I guess I'm not surprised. It's frustratingly difficult to buy groceries at the supermarket without plastic.

We compost many things at home, but cardboard boxes around food are a minefield. Most look like cardboard, but after you compost them you'll be picking out the plastic sheet that was bonded into them. One that particularly annoys me are cat food boxes. The cat food is separately wrapped (in unrecyclable foil-bonded-plastic, of course), and then the cardboard box containing those packets has a hidden plastic layer - for what possible reason!?!

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#113

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

labster wrote: post #67
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point the economics of that industry will change, and with it the prevailing winds on using plastics as building materials. KSA can pump oil at current rates for 40 years at $20 per barrel. That'll definitely be enough for global plastic consumption. Economics itself isn't going to phase out plastics in my lifetime.

If oil demand decreases enough, it should get more expensive. It seems counterintuitive, but so much of the supply chain depends on moving large amounts of oil, refineries selling different grades of molecules to different customers, and oil companies not having to pay to shut down old wells. Heh, just kidding on the last one, oil firms never pay to shut down wells, they just sell to small firms which can go bankrupt…

None of this applies to KSA's oil - which is more than enough oil to meet plastic consumption for 100 years.

At $20 per barrel - the economics alone will be tough to beat with some other material.

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#114

Post by yourapostasy »

TylerE wrote: post #90
Grimburger wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shellfish leftovers There's nowhere near enough of that and it's a natural resource we are already plundering at brutal levels.

It’s not like if throw the shell back in it’s gonna grow a new crab.

That's not sufficient macroeconomic justification to push the shellfish remains biofilm forward. See Cobra Effect [1].

This is reflexivity in action [2]. In the first year you start manufacturing this biofilm, your sentiment is true, it is using waste stream. In the Nth year, fisheries are collapsing shrimp stocks, flooding markets with shrimp to extract what used to be a waste stream to eke out ever decreasing margins in a vicious cycle.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory)

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#115

Post by alistairSH »

amluto wrote: post #25
csande17 wrote: post #2

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.

I cooking muffins with liners the norm? We don't use them. A healthy smear of olive oil in the pan and the muffins come out just fine.

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#116

Post by shalmanese »

yourapostasy wrote: post #114
TylerE wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like if throw the shell back in it’s gonna grow a new crab.

That's not sufficient macroeconomic justification to push the shellfish remains biofilm forward. See Cobra Effect [1]. This is reflexivity in action [2]. In the first year you start manufacturing this biofilm, your sentiment is true, it is using waste stream. In the Nth year, fisheries are collapsing shrimp stocks, flooding markets with shrimp to extract what used to be a waste stream to eke out ever decreasing margi…

Or you just consume the entirety of the waste stream and then stop because it's a low value marginal add on product that doesn't drive an industry. It's not like the demand for cow manure is driving us to create brand new herds simply to output more manure.

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#117

Post by gen220 »

jhatax wrote: post #96
gen220 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Recipe, please? These sound easy to make, easy to store, and healthy. That’s the trifecta! If they are delicious too, billions!

You can make them with or without protein powder.

But the main ingredients are creamy natural peanut butter, one of either local honey or local maple syrup, and "old-fashioned" rolled oats.

Stir until combined 200g PB, 135g honey/maple syrup, 5g vanilla extract, 3g sea salt.

To this mixture, add 100g rolled oats, 80g whey, ~200g nuts and seeds (can be crushed or whole, although partially-crushed is a bit easier). I use pecans, pepitas, walnuts, almonds, cashews. Whatever is in the pantry.

Transfer + compress to an appropriate-sized casserole dish (above is good for 8x8) with a large spoon, I usually line it first with paper to make later transfer easier.

Cover + chill for at least 1 hour, then slice with a sharp instrument (I use a pizza slicer, but a chef's knife is great). These proportions yield 12-ish bars. But you can compute the macronutrients for yourself to decide how big a serving should be.

In short, it's pretty similar to granola. Only without baking and without oil. I've found the flavor to vary widely depending on the honey/pb/whey used.

Sometimes, they taste like peanut butter cups. :)

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#118

Post by gen220 »

colordrops wrote: post #50
gen220 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You gonna let us in on the recipe?

Posted in a cousin comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33774259

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#119

Post by yourapostasy »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #95
cseleborg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't bought a cucumber wrapped in plastic in years (I actively avoid them) and have thrown away maybe two cucumbers in the same time. At this point, I think any plastic is a problem, and it needs very serious consideration whether plastic should be used. I'm fine with wrapping sterilized medical equipment in plastic. Crispbread, not so much.

But surely there is some point to it all. They point of the plastic is not for the consumer but the grocer and transporter. There should be some cost-benefit analysis — not just “all plastic must be avoided.” That’s a bit much.

> There should be some cost-benefit analysis...

Here be dragons. The instant you invoke cost-benefit you've lost the Overton Window and industry shills duped you.

The most common mechanism used is getting you to uncritically accept the timeframe the analysis takes place within, and the futility of a substantive, quantum qualitative difference. These go hand in hand.

The most common timeframe is "one generation", 30 years, usually framed as "zomg we're being SO nice to deign to accept lesser profits on such a long-ass timescale!".

If I could gift future generations an aquatic and soil ecosystem reverted to pre-anthropogenic methylmercury levels, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But that doesn't get accomplished when cost-benefit is measured in 30 years, but more like 60-90 years with Thanos snap-like policy action, closer to 3-600 years with cheaters accounted for.

Plastics disintegrating into our environment everywhere is the methylmercury story all over again. Industry externalization into our progeny's generations that will functionally last centuries into the future, for the financial well being of only a few hundreds of millions of families globally to afford contrivances with fleeting benefit even to themselves. Even in the "best" cases where instead of blowing the financial gain at the cost of externalization upon a frivolous 1000th Rolex or Nike, they sent Ruòxī and Sam to Harvard, that still doesn't help future generations contending with a deep energy problem of these diffuse materials pervading the ecosystem.

Because that's the real crux: this is an energy gradient problem within a timeline that stretches out for centuries when our civilizational economic planning horizon can't see past 30 years in the mainstream, 100 years in "outlier" use cases. Concentrating the wealth and material benefit of these materials happens within a brief time window set against that kind of timeline, using a specific amount of energy.

Once the material is dispersed into the ecosystem, it takes a lot longer and be much more energy intensive to perform harm reduction than it ever did to wield it in the first place.

We're seeing this pattern repeat increasingly more frequently because our civilization's scale is emerging more such use cases with different materials without considering cradle-to-cradle design. It seems a lot like a Tainter-style complexity collapse vector to me, but that's just my personal observations, YMMV. Actions are an entirely separate thread of discussion.

Re: Could Dissolvable Cranberry Film Replace Plastic Packaging Someday?

#120

Post by magicalhippo »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #79
colordrops wrote: post #51

Why cant we just use a bunch of different sized reusable containers that you return to the store?

Yea. My elevator pitch for this is “shipping containers for everyday items”. If we standardize on reusable container sizes then they can be returned, washed, and reprocessed back into the supply chain.

Here in Norway, soda bottles were returned, washed and used again.

They moved to single-use bottles some years ago, using recycled plastic[1], citing that the energy required for the transportation, washing etc of the reused bottles was higher than that of making new from recycled plastic.

A big issue is that a bottle going back to be washed is mostly air, so you get relatively few in a single truck. The new ones gets shredded at the store, thus you get a lot more plastic in a single truck.

So any reusable container would at the very least need to be stackable. However, I think the bottle story[2] here in Norway shows recycling is perhaps better than reusing.

[1]: https://www.coca-cola.no/nyheter-og-kampanjer/i-norge/100--r...

[2]: https://www.coca-cola.no/baerekraft/emballasje/redusertklima...

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