Live data from Hacker News

Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

lumafield.com

101–110 of 472 posts

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why this massive change to everything-should-be-packed-in-plastic happened I don't get why people keep pretending plastic being widely used today is due to some conspiracy instead of it's just better at its main function, even without factoring in cost. Compared to glass container, plastic ones are much lighter, harder to break, flexible, malleable, .. the list goes on. In the 1980s, the use of glass conta…

> Compared to glass container, plastic ones are much lighter, harder to break, flexible, malleable, .. the list goes on. Yes but they also have the huge waste issue and society isn't doing enough to deal with it. The drawbacks are also huge, the cost just isn't an issue for the companies putting the plastic out into the world. It's more cost effective because we allow it to be, because we subsidise the oil industry,…

> they also have the huge waste issue

That goes without saying.

The point is plastic is not only cheaper but also better (in term of functionality) and that's a problem we need solving to actually get ordinary people on the wagon. Reflecting their environment impact into cost with tax etc. is cool, but that's not enough.

Eating out and food delivery being 2x or even sometimes 10x more expensive than making food yourself never stop (some) people to do that anyway because of its convenience factor.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recyclable is a scam perpetuated by the plastic industry. You should be using reusable glass which is expensive to replace but cheap to refill.

Where I live only restaurants can buy glass bottle soda. It is quite sad, since I like those. They are way nicer to drink from.

Where I live, everyone can buy bottled water in glass bottles. I think there are now glass bottles with Coca Cola, too, though I'm not certain (I don't drink soda).

The catch is they're obscenely expensive.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Germany recycle 60% of its plastic waste? There is obviously hope, just not enough incentive because it costs.

The number is greenwashing because it's including "thermal Recycling" aka burning. https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/ressourcen-abfall/verwe...

How is that even allowed to be called recycling? As in, is it genuinely a term defined legally and, if so, who allowed this to happen? Because burning is most certainly not recycling.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#104
post #31
post #4

Very nice. I live alone and often I'm baffled by the sheer amount of garbage that my urban lifestyle generates. I was not alive in the 80's but I was told that people used to use more environment-friendly packaging like glass bottles. Sometimes I wonder why this massive change to everything-should-be-packed-in-plastic happened.

I go through a 64 gallon trash bin a week. By my back of the envelope calculation thats about 1.3 chevy tahoes worth of trash a year, and that's just me one American out of 400 million so all told we are dealing with maybe half a billion chevy tahoes of trash a year we need to do something with or put someplace if most Americans consume like I do.

Chiming in to also state how absurd this sounds to me.

I live in a household with 3 adults generating trash, we don't even fill up a 190L bin every 2 weeks in between pickups, usually when I roll the bin to the street it will be about 1/3 to 2/3 filled. We have a compost bin about the same size which also gets about 1/3 to 2/3 filled every 2 weeks.

Apart from that our recycling bins (about 60L for the paper/plastic ones, 20L for glass and metal) gets filled in about 4-6 weeks which I then take to the recycling station.

In summary as 3 adults we generate in the absolute top end about 117 gallons of non-compostable trash a month (those are very rare instances), so about 30 gallons a week for 3 adults even when adding up all the recycling we do.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#105
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why this massive change to everything-should-be-packed-in-plastic happened I don't get why people keep pretending plastic being widely used today is due to some conspiracy instead of it's just better at its main function, even without factoring in cost. Compared to glass container, plastic ones are much lighter, harder to break, flexible, malleable, .. the list goes on. In the 1980s, the use of glass conta…

> I don't get why people keep pretending plastic being widely used today is due to some conspiracy instead of it's just better at its main function, even without factoring in cost. I don't know how you read parents comment and concluded that they're talking about some conspiracy. They seem to genuinely ask a question that I'm sure they're not the only one thinking about. > In 80's people use more glass containers bec…

> some position that isn't even talked about.

There are already lots of sibling comments saying the heavy use of plastic is "forced on people" by companies, so yes it is talked about. And that's exactly what OP implied.

I'm not even saying this point is entirely false, just want to emphasize that people actually prefer convenient things regardless if it's forced on them or not.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#106
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic bottles weigh less and can be made thinner. Transportation costs dominate the cost of most consumables

Transport cost is one factor, but even in countries where glass bottles are sold alongside plastic ones they are unpopular to the end user themselves because of their inconvenience. The common 2kg×6 PET bottles format is too heavy for glass bottles, so you end up paying more for heavier 1.5kgx6 bottles that are going to last you less.

> because of their inconvenience

IMO it's simply habits

no one would buy beer or wine in a plastic bottle, because it feels wrong (and it is if you ask me).

Here in Italy nobody in their right mind buys tomato sauce in plastic bottles, our granmas would come to haunt us at night if we did.

but we buy water in plastic bottles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recyclable is a scam perpetuated by the plastic industry. You should be using reusable glass which is expensive to replace but cheap to refill.

> a scam perpetuated by the plastic industry What does this actually mean and what are you basing it on? Without any sources or references it reads a bit like FUD.

Here's an article: https://newrepublic.com/article/179267/recycling-doesnt-work...

The gist: similar to Big Tobacco, etc., internally with the plastics industry, there seems to have been a much greater degree of pessimism about the long-term economic viability of plastics recycling, but it was sold to the public anyway via ad campaigns and lobbying to forestall regulation or legislation limiting plastics as public sentiment was shifting towards a greater sense of environmental awareness.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#108
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass is in no way environmentally friendly. It takes a huge amount of energy to produce glass, and a singel glass bottle requires a lot of it. PET bottle recycling is the closest we got to a functional plastic recycling system.

Glass is also very heavy, which means that transporting glass-packaged goods requires much more energy than transporting e.g. plastic bottles.

Though transporting stuff large distances requires a lot of energy either way.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#109
post #4

Very nice. I live alone and often I'm baffled by the sheer amount of garbage that my urban lifestyle generates. I was not alive in the 80's but I was told that people used to use more environment-friendly packaging like glass bottles. Sometimes I wonder why this massive change to everything-should-be-packed-in-plastic happened.

Plastic is a superior packaging material. It delivers superb cleanlines and posibility to use packaging gas(Nitrogen) in automated lines. Cleanliness is essential for shelf life, and many products have it now unheard compared to 80s paper packaging - only due to package. Amount of food spoilage prevented by plastic packaging is enormous, it is very sad to see this no plastic hysteria. Like seing dark ages returning.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#110
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until someone develops some sort of multi-spectral imaging that can reliably sort plastic based on it's composition there's little hope of recycling plastic. And then you still need different enzymes that can break down different compositions. It's sad, but realistically almost all plastic one disposes of needs to go in the trash can rather than recycling. You can't even rely on dedicated collection - https://abcnews…

Copenhagen recycles 70% of collected plastic, with the rest incinerated (used for heating homes, I think). Almost all plastic packaging is collected, including wrappers and trays. https://affald.kk.dk/affaldsfraktion/saadan-sorterer-du-plas... (in Danish)

The last time I saw such numbers for impractical-to-recycle stuff like thins and foamed plastics, it ended up that the companies were just lying

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/redcycle-soft-plastic...

Post reply on HN