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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

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Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#171

Post by lightedman »

asdff wrote: post #31
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 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.

That's an insane amount of generated trash. My husband and I combined might fill our 13 gallon kitchen trash can once every four days. Is your lifestyle primarily eating out/prepackaged foods?

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#173

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #128
londons_explore wrote: post #43

It does mean this cap is practically impossible to clean, and provides a lot of surface area and crevices for mould to grow or plasticizers to leak from the packaging into the product. All engineering is a tradeoff, and I would be interested to see how those factors were considered when doing the redesign.

> and provides a lot of surface area and crevices for mould to grow Isn't the whole reason Heinz ketchup is self stable is because it's too high in acidity for mold to even grow

It's probably from added stabilizers and not acidity. Molds do well with acidic food, as well as sugary and salty

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#174

Post by scbrg »

remotefonts wrote: post #163
bombcar wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be 1.2 cubic miles a year uncompressed. Quite a lot but also not that much.

Cubic miles? Strange measurement unit...

We're in a thread that opened with chevy tahoes... I'd say it's an improvement, even if there's some way to go still :)

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#175

Post by yencabulator »

throw1231312 wrote: post #2

> Heinz has taken a major step forward for sustainable packaging with the introduction of .... > The new cap's uniform composition of polypropylene (PP) simplifies recycling and ... > Currently only about 3% of PP products are being recycled in the United States.

I fully expect that what's really happening here is that it's slightly cheaper to manufacture the caps as a single mold, rather than needing to combine two parts.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#176

Post by Solvency »

pxx wrote: post #166
bayindirh wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glass is recycled infinitely more easily and more widely. Pasabahce sells upcycled and recycled products here, and mark them clearly. Also, we have glass collection bins which has different compartments for clear and colored glass. These are periodically emptied. Even if they are not recycled, a glass jar is used for more than five years in an household, only by replacing the caps in the process. If we don't need the…

It's well-known the total environmental impact is much less for plastic than glass. Just the weight alone should allow you to understand this [0] [1] [2]. Glass is not recyclable widely. It is a contaminant in single-stream recycling because broken glass is a hazard for sorting, and even if you are able to recycle it, the transport costs are extremely high [3]. [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230427-glass-or…

I like how you completely ignored the environmental impact of microplastics and PFAS.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#177

Post by Solvency »

kalleboo wrote: post #164
leadingthenet wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about emissions, though. Single-use plastics literally just accumulate in landfills until the end of time, while glass is highly recyclable (and one of the few economically viable ones).

I've never lived anywhere that landfills garbage so I don't know about that.

Ah, you throw yours right into the river then.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#178

Post by pfdietz »

RowanH wrote: post #55
petepete wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In NZ - ditto growing up had the milk delivery service. Now it was a long distance memory until we moved to a smaller town/city. To our surprise one of the independent milk companies had a delivery service and up until a few months ago there was a glass bottle based delivery service of proper milk (the kind with thick fat/cream on the top..). Absolutely magic. Alas cost of living took hold and they stopped the servic…

I remember growing up when milk delivery in glass bottles was replaced by milk delivery in plastic bags (in cardboard boxes). All that ultimately went away when milk was just another thing you bought at the grocery store. I imagine the supply chain got fast and good enough that milk wouldn't spoil before it could be consumed, going that route, so the extra cost of home delivery became difficult to justify.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#179

Post by megaman821 »

batushka3 wrote: post #109
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 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.

I agree with you. Plastic is one of those weird issues where it gets much more prominence than it deserves. Plastic reduces food waste and items damaged in shipping. If you don't litter and have a good landfill system, there is nothing to worry about.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#180

Post by rufus_foreman »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #173
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and provides a lot of surface area and crevices for mould to grow Isn't the whole reason Heinz ketchup is self stable is because it's too high in acidity for mold to even grow

It's probably from added stabilizers and not acidity. Molds do well with acidic food, as well as sugary and salty

Heinz ketchup ingredients: TOMATO CONCENTRATE FROM RED RIPE TOMATOES, DISTILLED VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, SALT, SPICE, ONION POWDER, NATURAL FLAVORING.

-- https://www.heinz.com/products/00013000006408-tomato-ketchup

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