311–320 of 472 posts
A glass bottle/jar with a metal cap is far superior if the goal was sustainability. Maybe the user experience isn't as desirable but more plastic that isn't going to get recycled doesn't' seem great...
> 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…
Yep, its all our fault.
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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.
The first principle hack here is to put the waste stream separation burden on the consumer. Here in Japan we are sorting and packaging our trash all at home and putting it out to be collected individually. There is - cardboard (to be cut flat and bundled with string) - unlaminated and clean paper (to be bundled with string or collected in a paper bag) - PET (clean, no bottle cap, label removed) - Milk cartons above 1…
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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 checkma…
We most definitely need to fully study the impacts of plastics on the human body. We don’t know the full extent of what it’s doing and it’s important we figure it out.
It’s a complicated equation that we do not fully understand. It’s easy to say just ban it but there is are a lot of other negative consequences that will come out of that decision. That’s my point, none of us know the exact outcome either way so it’s silly and all too easy to just make proclamations like yours and then sprinkle in some dementia with it. I am certain you can pull out a study that has a link between the two but I suspect we still don’t know the true origins of dementia and we do not know the full impacts of plastics on human health.
I bet you don’t even know the source of microplastics fully. I sure don’t. For all I know it is from car tires that makes it into the water ways and we eventually drink it or consume meat that has drunk it.
We don’t know the equation enough to know what concerns we should weight heavier on a global/population scale.
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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.
Fair point, but I don’t store very much of my food in a tire and I rarely, if ever put food in a shirt before I microwave it. In the other hand, I probably have about a pound of Tupperware in my body. I guess my point is that you’re right about micro plastics in the environment, but I’m more concerned about the ones in me. (Strenuously agree that both are bad).
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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.
Fair point, but I don’t store very much of my food in a tire and I rarely, if ever put food in a shirt before I microwave it. In the other hand, I probably have about a pound of Tupperware in my body. I guess my point is that you’re right about micro plastics in the environment, but I’m more concerned about the ones in me. (Strenuously agree that both are bad).
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That works in some parts of the world but I still don't believe the total environmental cost is as easy to calculate even in your scenario. The total cradle-to-grave environmental cost of a product has many variables and its not always as clear. Those variables can also have different weightings depending on the user (maybe microplastics is a greater concern that total environmental cost). In the past, even when acco…
What's the definition of environmental impact you're working with? I think microplastic pollution is horrible. It's arguably worth putting extra carbon in the atmosphere to avoid plastic pollution. I'm not actually sure.
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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.
The first principle hack here is to put the waste stream separation burden on the consumer. Here in Japan we are sorting and packaging our trash all at home and putting it out to be collected individually. There is - cardboard (to be cut flat and bundled with string) - unlaminated and clean paper (to be bundled with string or collected in a paper bag) - PET (clean, no bottle cap, label removed) - Milk cartons above 1…
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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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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…
In my local jurisdiction (a part of the US) the recycling bin is only allowed to be filled with cardboard and metal cans. Glass/plastic/contaminated cardboard and others are all required to go into the trash. Which makes no sense, glass is infinitely recyclable, yet it is not, it is instead brought to the local dump. Now here's the kicker, I was talking the to the trash collection people around the winter break (tip…
It's reusable, sure. Glass milk bottles you return to be washed and refilled are great.
Glass recycling though makes little sense in many areas of the world. You are basically trucking sand around. Just far less efficiently. Glass takes about 40% less energy to melt than sand does, so you need to have a relatively efficient recycling supply chain to make up for that.
I haven't looked into it for over a decade, but the RoEI on that was exceedingly negative for my locality when I did.