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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

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Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#251

Post by vel0city »

jgalt212 wrote: post #213
Hizonner wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's more efficient than glass? Ship the product in bulk and dispense it into the customer's container. And a lot of products could actually be formulated on site, because most of, say, your cleaning aisle is various combinations of relatively few standard components. The biggest barrier there are certain people's desires to control information and to create the perception of distinctions that don't exist.

> You know what's more efficient than glass? Ship the product in bulk and dispense it into the customer's container. yeah, that would be a great use of everyone's time. line up at the olive oil station, line up at the beer station, line up at the flour station, line up at the coffee station, line up at the ketchup station, .... and then on top of that, add up the time and expense of everyone getting a different price…

I'd love if there were just dispensers for the soaps and juices and what not I buy. Just tap my credit card, press a button, and fill a big jug. I agree I probably wouldn't want everything sold as such but loads of staples where I am probably going to go through a lot of it all the time or are already going to have a short shelf life, sure.

And yeah, I actually do go with the "line up at the beer station and get bulk beer", a number of breweries around me have walk-up growler filling stations. It is pretty nice getting fresh beer straight from the source. A few groceries near me fill growlers as well.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#252

Post by azemetre »

numpad0 wrote: post #219
azemetre wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should plastic containers shedding millions of nano particles be considered sanitary? The only reason it’s used is that the externalities aren’t properly taxed (or not banned IMO). Maybe we should not use things that are “easier” when they’re contributing to a massive amount of pollution. I mean there was an article posted here about finding microplastics in a human fetus. Yet we still continue to use it.

Biologically it is. You could argue on long term effects of microplastics but it's clearly less of a risk than food poisoning.

We're seriously going to say that a substance that was very recently introduced to human society is as risky as food poisoning? How often do the commoners have to suffer through businesses ill-attempt to save money while poisoning us?

Leaded gasoline, chlorofluorocarbons, asbestos, pet food laced with poisons and filler, baby food laced with heavy metals, opioids, cigarettes, campaigns about seat belts being unsafe, round up, fracking that poisons the ground water, etc.

Excuse me if I doubt the corporations, that continue to poison the the world around us unless literally forced by nation states not to, are being honest when they safe "oh it's not harmful" and not the reality of the situation. Wanting to save a buck, repercussions be damned.

Why are you saying "clearly" as if it's 100% guaranteed? We have no idea the repercussions of introducing a new substance that has literally infiltrated all organic life on earth. This is completely new territory and acting like it's all "solved science" is extremely disingenuous.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#253

Post by infecto »

azemetre wrote: post #202
infecto wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its cheaper and easier to ensure sanitary products. We love to be romantic about glass but I don't think as easy of a calculation for the total environmental use. Glass is heavier and more expensive to transport. Glass is harder to shape into sizes that make for efficient transportation, for example Costco square milk jugs. I love to use glass when I can but I don't know if using this glass jar which may not even be…

Should plastic containers shedding millions of nano particles be considered sanitary? The only reason it’s used is that the externalities aren’t properly taxed (or not banned IMO). Maybe we should not use things that are “easier” when they’re contributing to a massive amount of pollution. I mean there was an article posted here about finding microplastics in a human fetus. Yet we still continue to use it.

Unfortunately your kind of argument is what often comes up in ecological debates. I am not denying the impact of microplastics but raising the point that it is a complicated equation. Banning plastics is just a silly comment. What about tires, medical devices, plastic jugs to get water to people with no access to clean water. It is an easy argument to make if you might be in a place of privilege and you can hand wave most of those problems away. My posistion is that yes microplastics pose a possible issue on a go forward basis, I don't know the totality and I believe that humans are still better off than we were before plastics.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#254

Post by azemetre »

bullfightonmars wrote: post #250
azemetre wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should plastic containers shedding millions of nano particles be considered sanitary? The only reason it’s used is that the externalities aren’t properly taxed (or not banned IMO). Maybe we should not use things that are “easier” when they’re contributing to a massive amount of pollution. I mean there was an article posted here about finding microplastics in a human fetus. Yet we still continue to use it.

Do bottles shed microplastics? Manufacturer > store > pantry > garbage can > dump. Isn’t the majority of this buried in the ground in dumps that are sealed off from groundwater? I suspect our clothes, cars/tires, houses, and other things that live outside contribute more to microplastics than food containers.

Yes, they shed plastics:

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2024/01/12/plastic-bottles-n...

The question should be reversed, is there anything made of plastic that doesn't shed particles? It seems likely not, they all tend to shed.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#255

Post by woodruffw »

ecshafer wrote: post #249
woodruffw wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (most?) nicer grocery stores in the US already do bulk packaging for coffee, to no discernible detrimental effect. Compared to narrow aisles and decision paralysis from 60 different plastic bottles with the same ingredients but different scents/dyes, I think any inefficiencies in bulk shopping are probably pretty small.

This might be a local thing for you. The only store around me that has bulk coffee is the very bougie food co-op. Even nice stores like whole foods, wegmans, trader joes don't have that.

Possibly. I know for a fact that Whole Foods in NYC has bulk coffee, as well as bulk rice and other grains. It's also the norm in local mid-range chains (Westside Market, Fairway) and greenmarket-style stores.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#256

Post by vel0city »

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.

Coca-Cola wouldn't be putting anything in plastic bottles if people stopped drinking Coca-Cola.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#257

Post by adrianmonk »

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.

With ketchup (and mustard, mayo, etc.), squeezable bottles are way more convenient. Gone are the days of wanting to get X amount of ketchup out of the bottle but ending up with either 0X or 10X.

Aside from the ketchup dispensing utility, you also escape tedious discussions about the best way to get ketchup out of a glass bottle. Do you tap the side? Shake the bottle? Angle it? Smack the bottom? Just sit there patiently? Warm it up? Stick a knife in it? You can be pretty sure that if you use any of these methods, someone is going to tell you about one of the others.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#258

Post by azemetre »

infecto wrote: post #253
azemetre wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should plastic containers shedding millions of nano particles be considered sanitary? The only reason it’s used is that the externalities aren’t properly taxed (or not banned IMO). Maybe we should not use things that are “easier” when they’re contributing to a massive amount of pollution. I mean there was an article posted here about finding microplastics in a human fetus. Yet we still continue to use it.

Unfortunately your kind of argument is what often comes up in ecological debates. I am not denying the impact of microplastics but raising the point that it is a complicated equation. Banning plastics is just a silly comment. What about tires, medical devices, plastic jugs to get water to people with no access to clean water. It is an easy argument to make if you might be in a place of privilege and you can hand wave…

I'm not talking about just banning plastics (it should be banned involving anything food related IMO) but actually taxing these materials as the hazardous materials they surely are.

Why would you ever expect a bottling plant to move away from plastic when there is no incentive? Why would anyone move to better materials or continue researching when there are cheaper alternatives that aren't rightfully taxed against their externalities?

Why are we as a society, one which has banned lead from gasoline (resulting in lower crime rates across the world) or banning CFCs to repair the ozone layer, feel so helpless trying to hold these corporations accountable for not polluting our world around us today?

Is it really that impossible?

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#259

Post by digging »

lp4vn wrote: post #111
thrdbndndn wrote: post #80

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 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).

I don't actually expect consumer preference is or ever has been a primary factor. It's cheaper and more reliable to ship plastic bottles. Manufacturers will use them for those reasons and then we'll buy them because it's what is available. Or it's cheaper. Or we have a preference. But at that point, it hardly matters.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#260

Post by audunw »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #223

> Currently only about 3% of PP products are being recycled in the United States, but it is becoming more widely accepted So now the relatively small amount of mass in the cap is just as recyclable as the bottle itself -- neither are actually going to be recycled. There's nothing to see here but marketing. And a an interesting engineering puzzle solved, sure. "How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Woul…

But PP is one of the plastics that CAN be recycled, and IS recycled, often at a much higher rate than in the US.

One of the barriers of effectively recycling PP is the mixing of materials in packaging. I know some brands in my country switched labels to make sure the bottle was uniform and recognises by recycling machines as PP. So what Heinz is doing here is actually meaningful.

The other problem USA has is poor education and lack of well separated waste streams. I’ve personally experienced ridiculous “wishcycling” from my extended family in the US where they just throw whatever they want to feel good about throwing away in the recycling bin without looking up what should go in there. Not to mention that the idea of a “recycling” bin is ridiculous to start with. You need one bin for each type of material.

The ideal solution is the bottle recycling machines (like Tomra) found in Northern Europe, that only accepts aluminium and plastic cans/bottles, which goes right back to making new cans/bottles. Well, the plastic bottle part is work in progress, but there are bottles made from 100% recycled materials now, and the key to that is to have a clean well-separated stream of recycled materials coming in.

Funny story: I saw a documentary from a local advanced recycling centre, where they mentioned that the bales of plastic that actually went to be reused in new products/bottles smelled really nice. Because a big portion of them was PP shampoo bottles.

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