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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

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Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#281

Post by jerf »

seszett wrote: post #47
asdff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I go through a 64 gallon trash bin a week. That seems absurdly large to me. 64 gallons is 250 litres. We're four and we use about one 30 litres (8 gallons) bag for "rest" trash per week (everything not recyclable, including diapers which take a lot of space, so hopefully soon we can at least halve that trash volume) one 30 litres bag for recyclable plastic/metal every two weeks and maybe one 30 litres bag for compo…

We nominally go through a garbage bin a week... but if you compact it down it isn't anywhere near full. It's just effectively impossible to compact as an end user without special appliances.

I think a lot of people make the mistake of looking at a quantity of trash and measuring it by apparent visual volume, but that's not a very useful measure. Mass is a lot closer to a useful number. Many things that visually appear enormous are in fact not that big a deal, many things that visually seem small actually represent a lot of resources.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#282

Post by ecshafer »

Steltek wrote: post #266
ecshafer wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wegman's definitely has bulk food sections. The memorable part is the candy but there are other foods. I'm not sure if they have bulk coffee? Their name brand coffee bags have the roast date on them (vs. "best by" BS dates) so I zeroed in on that and didn't look back. Also Stop'n'Shop, a very much NOT a bougie food store, has bulk coffee with a grinder. At least in some locations.

Wegmans has always had the bulk candy, nuts, etc. as far back as a I can remember, I've never seen coffee though.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#283

Post by plussed_reader »

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…

Banning micro-plastic sources from consumer purposes isn't so silly if it contributes to dementia and other neurological issues long term.

They're finding they stuff embedded in utero lining; your argument strikes me as the same old rebuttal to the things we can't political agree to study. You can't deny there is a lot of business momentum to keep plastics in production, no? And yet the more we learn the more checkmarks in the minus column for petro-chemicals accumulate.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#284

Post by RandallBrown »

audunw wrote: post #260
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 edu…

Bottle and can recycling machines are common in the United States as well, although only in places with bottle/can deposits.

Many recycling centers in the US use single stream recycling where the waste is separated into separate streams at the recycling plant. I'm sure this only works well for glass and metal items but I don't see any reason that it eventually wouldn't get better.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#285

Post by plussed_reader »

azemetre wrote: post #254
bullfightonmars wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do air molecules in gaseous form colliding with the plastic contribute to micro-plastic production? Oxygen is a notoriously active element....

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#286

Post by ccc3 »

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…

This is a pessimistic, anti-progress perspective. As you point out, there are plenty of other problems in the recycling chain. But this is a small step in the right direction. And the investment here is pretty small too. $1.2m probably covered a handful of engineers for around a year plus the cost of tooling. Given that Heinz sells a lot of ketchup, I would expect that the impact/dollar here is pretty high.

Also, I’d bet that the new cap is cheaper than the old one. I’m sure that helped justify the investment to management. Kudos to the engineers who made this happen for finding a solution that is palatable to management and also makes the packaging more sustainable.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#287

Post by RandallBrown »

drewdevault wrote: post #263
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…

The only genuine path to sustainability is reduction. There is no sustainable way to have disposable single-use packaging that you throw away when the bottle empties. Glass bottles with a deposit to incentivize bottle return, following which they are washed and refilled with new product (ideally locally, with fresh ketchup arriving to local distribution centers in bulk), is a much more reasonable approach.

Glass bottles are considerably heavier and bulkier enough that shipping becomes a non-negligible expenditure of energy.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#288

Post by b112 »

actionfromafar wrote: post #14
b112 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which sort of highlights local vs national production and shipping. The local milkman of the 50s, did better with glass collecting and delivering milk. The national enterprise benefits, as you say, from weight reduction.

The enterprise "benefits" because it completely off-loads the environmental impact to the tax payers.

It does with glass, and the cleaning solutions, and the water used during re-use.

I'm sure glass is far more environmentally sound, but to claim that glass production, glass cleaning(and the harsh chemicals and their production cost to the environment), and water for flushing afterwards are not relevant, would be wrong.

So every business off-loads some environmental impact to the tax payer.

My point? While your statement is true, it has nothing to do with how the business decision is made re: cost to the business. The metric used there is "what saves the business money".

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#289

Post by biftek »

rightbyte wrote: post #91
throwaway88409 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ketchup should be in a jar rather than bottle really. You can't get the ketchup out of glass bottles. Or atleast 5yo me couldn't. And that was about the last time I had those.

I never understood why we put condiments in slim/squeeze bottles, I would love to buy a jar of ketchup.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#290

Post by rekttrader »

ccc3 wrote: post #286
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…

This is a pessimistic, anti-progress perspective. As you point out, there are plenty of other problems in the recycling chain. But this is a small step in the right direction. And the investment here is pretty small too. $1.2m probably covered a handful of engineers for around a year plus the cost of tooling. Given that Heinz sells a lot of ketchup, I would expect that the impact/dollar here is pretty high. Also, I’d…

My bet is that it is just cheaper to make without the silicone and as an added bonus it’s more recyclable.

It’s just cost savings that can be greenwashed.

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