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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

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Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#111

Post by lp4vn »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #80
lp4vn wrote: 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 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 think you can speak for yourself.

I prefer glass bottles to plastic ones and I always buy soda in glass bottles if they are available(and this means almost always since they are available in the supermarket close to my home).

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#112

Post by diggan »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #105
diggan wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

Reply to those comments instead then? Instead of assuming bad faith like "OP implied". I cannot be the only one who doesn't think parent implied anything at all and instead just asked a question why the change happened from glass to plastic.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#113

Post by morsch »

dmitrygr wrote: post #5
lp4vn wrote: 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 bottles weigh less and can be made thinner. Transportation costs dominate the cost of most consumables

> Transportation costs dominate the cost of most consumables

That was surprising to me and, uh, no, they don't, unless you're considering building materials (i.e. rocks).

It's not easy to find numbers, but for milk in Germany, it appears to be around 10%, about the same as packaging. Milk should be worse than many other products because it's cheap and heavy, on the other hand it's rarely shipped over great distances. [1]

Another report [2] considers transportation costs relative to the value of the goods transported, which isn't exactly the same as "how much of the consumer price is transportation", but surely related, and has 2.7% for foodstuffs (and 55% for rocks).

I mean, I'm sure it varies widely for different kinds of consumables, but overall, transporting stuff is cheap. I think even in terms of CO2, which is certainly underrepresented in cost currently, production dominates transport for most goods in a grocery store, apart from produce shipped by air.

[1] https://www.agrarheute.com/tier/rind/78-cent-fuer-trinkmilch...

[2] https://bmdv.bund.de/SharedDocs/DE/Anlage/G/MKS-Wissenschaft... (Tabelle 8)

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#114

Post by petemir »

kostko wrote: post #25
lp4vn wrote: 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.

Your lifestyle does not generate garbage. Companies that sell non recyclables and non compostsbles generate garbage. Why hasnt cocacola replaced their plastics with something compostable? There are new inventions for replacing plastics out each day, I wonder where those inventions end up.

Funnily/depressingly enough, not even supposedly compostable stuff is actually compostable [0]

[0] https://www.research-in-germany.org/idw-news/en_US/2023/10/2...

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#115

Post by dgellow »

sbierwagen wrote: post #71
obmelvin wrote: 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…

>Until someone develops some sort of multi-spectral imaging that can reliably sort plastic based on it's composition Funny you phrase it like that, because that's exactly what the STEINERT UniSort does. Plastic waste is finely shredded, dumped onto a conveyor belt, imaged, then passed over air puff sorters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3QHa9oQshw Is it worth it? Of course not. Far cheaper and easier just to burn…

A lots of recycled plastic (I mean what people put in the plastic recycling bin) in the EU ends up being burned. They are sorted, cleaned up, then packaged into burnable units, because it’s the most cost effective way to reuse it

I see 42% “energy recovery” from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20181212STO... from 2018.

I found this from January 2024: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-new-b...

> In Europe, about 40 % of post-consumer plastic waste is incinerated with energy recovery, and the rest is either landfilled or recycled. About half of the plastic waste collected and recycled is treated in the European Union; the other half is exported, mainly to China.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#116

Post by distances »

petemir wrote: post #114
kostko wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your lifestyle does not generate garbage. Companies that sell non recyclables and non compostsbles generate garbage. Why hasnt cocacola replaced their plastics with something compostable? There are new inventions for replacing plastics out each day, I wonder where those inventions end up.

Funnily/depressingly enough, not even supposedly compostable stuff is actually compostable [0] [0] https://www.research-in-germany.org/idw-news/en_US/2023/10/2...

Indeed, I think/hope most people have now moved to paper bags for their bio waste recycling.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#117

Post by distances »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #99
AlecSchueler wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I guess it might refer to the fact that 80% of the plastic produced ends up in landfills and it's not recycled, for different reasons, one of them is that recycling plastic is very expensive. Also there are several different types of plastic that do not melt together, or do not melt at all, and can't be easily recycled or reused. It also degrades and becomes more toxic on every cycle and, unlike glass, health safety…

Is the 80% a number for the US? In northern Europe I assume that a small percentage is recycled and the rest is incinerated for electricity and heat -- landfill usage has restrictions in the EU.

Some countries like Sweden and Finland use incineration to such extent that they have a lack of domestic waste and have to import it [0].

[0] https://yle.fi/a/74-20076606

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#118

Post by kalleboo »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #32
kostko wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your lifestyle does not generate garbage. Companies that sell non recyclables and non compostsbles generate garbage. Why hasnt cocacola replaced their plastics with something compostable? There are new inventions for replacing plastics out each day, I wonder where those inventions end up.

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 grew up the reason stated when they replaced glass with plastic was that the weight of the glass alone caused more pollution from transport than the plastic bottles that replaced them

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#119

Post by vostok »

petepete wrote: post #8
lp4vn wrote: 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.

In the 80s in the UK we had milk delivered every morning in glass bottles by a huge fleet of electric vehicles. The empty bottles were left out, collected by the milkman, sterilised and reused. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float

Do you know what percentage of after tax income people paid fir this? I'm curious how other compares to today's services.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#120

Post by reactordev »

lp4vn wrote: 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.

Convenience. In the 80s, people were starting to get over worked and so conveniences like plastic packaging, microwave meals, lunchables, plastic bottles, etc started popping up. Easy, just grab one. When you’re done, just throw it away! Except, then there was a garbage problem - so they campaigned for recycling! Then reality of recycling hit and so they say - separate and clean it first. Meanwhile people like you are wondering how we got to this madness. Convenience. And some really good marketing. Only about 9% of plastic has been recycled.
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