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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

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Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#321

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

justusthane wrote: post #297
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Molds and bacteria do not do well with acidic foods — that’s why you can leave an opened jar of salsa in the fridge for, like, a year. It’s also why it’s safe to can tomato sauce in a hot water bath, versus other less acidic food which need to be pressure canned.

Wrong! Both bacteria and fungi can thrive in a variety of pH. Acidophiles are a group specialized to highly acidic environments, and there are alkaliphiles as well. Fungi and bacteria also have methods to both change the pH of their environment, and adapt to it. Google it, there's plenty of research papers.

Both bacteria and fungi prefer more acidic than alkaline environments, with a "happy range" for each. Tomatoes are only weakly acidic, at 4.3 to 4.9. But molds commonly grow at pH 3.5 to 8. Aspergillus niger and Penicillium funiculosum can grow at pH 2 and below.

Extremely low pH is certainly useful at inhibiting some forms of life, but the world contains many different forms of life, and some are a lot more adaptive than others. Research shows that the best way to preserve food is a combination of chemical preservatives and low pH. Which is why the commercial food industry uses preservatives...

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#322

Post by Mistletoe »

buildsjets wrote: post #273
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…

eli5: The bottle is PET and is easily and commonly recycled, if it actually makes it to the recycling facility. About 30% of PET sold in the US actually gets recycled. It's the clear soda bottle plastic. The cap was previously 99% PP and 1% Silicone and was not recyclable at all. The cap is now 100% PP and therefore recyclable in theory, but in practice there are limited facilities that can recycle PP.

Do we honestly with a straight face tell ourselves that consumers are going to remove this cap before recycling and place them in the right bins or there is a recycling facility somewhere with workers removing caps from ketchup bottles? It’s a ludicrous greenwashing idea from the get go.

I love the idea of recycling but I just don’t do it anymore when I realized my city’s single stream recycling was likely just ending up being shipped to Asia with fossil fuels and dumped in the ocean eventually and adding to the Pacific plastic gyre. Burying it in a landfill seems highly more optimal than that.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#323

Post by lobochrome »

numpad0 wrote: post #313
lobochrome wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And we burn most of it anyways. It's not like Japan got plastics and glass recycling to work, some of us hoped around the turn of the century that with the rapid progress of technologies at the time we soon will and did the legal prepwork. At the end of the day it was a bit of a dedicated self driving lane.

Is that so? Do you have any sources for that? Honestly curious.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#324

Post by gs17 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #291
drewdevault wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think deposits or a meaningful motivation for return in the US. More of a grift or sin tax than anything else. I wonder if even 1% of the charge is paid out to consumers

They worked pretty well when I lived in MI (although non-deposit containers would still become litter). Now I live in TN, with no deposit, and cans definitely get recycled less, even in relatively liberal parts of Nashville.

https://www.infographicsarchive.com/which-states-recycling-t... (which in turn cites https://www.ball.com/sustainability/real-circularity/50-stat... ) seems to show deposits correlating with better recycling rates. MI got a poor score overall, but in cans it's on top.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#325

Post by gnopgnip »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #291
drewdevault wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think deposits or a meaningful motivation for return in the US. More of a grift or sin tax than anything else. I wonder if even 1% of the charge is paid out to consumers

89% of deposit bottles are returned and recycled in Michigan

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#326

Post by coryfklein »

Symbiote wrote: post #296
coryfklein wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does "recyling" include paying Chinese "recyclers" to take it? Because if so then I don't think it's actually being recycled. What, pray tell, are they doing with this low-grade recycled plastic? Putting park benches out into the environment that will degrade faster, distributing microplastics everywhere? Or are they investing a ton of time and energy to recycle the plastic into higher use (than park benches), which…

All your snarky points are answered in the linked site.

Hardly? It says the plastic is shuffled off to other recyclers in the EEA, but gives no indication how much of the material those recyclers actually recycle. Maybe it doesn't end up in a Chinese landfill, but substitute "China" with "Latvia" or "Estonia" and the point still stands. Show me the miraculous Estonian recycling industry where 90% of consumer plastics comes from recycled material and I'll take my words back.

What are they actually doing with the recycled plastic? Making it into pellets and flakes. They call out that you could use these to make shampoo bottles, but dare not actually claim that such a thing is happening. My understanding of recycled plastic is that it is inherently lower grade than new plastic. If recycled plastic is that much cheaper but still as useable, then surely manufacturers are jumping at the bit to use it everywhere?

Finally, there is no mention of the energy cost or environmental impact of the recycling.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#327

Post by madeofpalk »

rekttrader wrote: post #290
ccc3 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nice! It's cheaper and less bad? Seems like a win/win.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#328

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rekttrader wrote: post #290
ccc3 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My bet is that jurisdictions with Extended Producer Responsibility laws were going to charge them money to clear up their mess and it became a sensible business decision to make this change to save them money.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#329

Post by natoliniak »

adrianmonk wrote: post #257
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 patient…

> best way to get ketchup out of a glass bottle.

i store the ketchup bottle upside down and when i open it, it is immediately ready to pour and is mostly controllable

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#330

Post by madeofpalk »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #241
GuB-42 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope it is less expensive. Cost savings often benefit sustainability. You probably heard the "reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order" thing. The "reduce" part also reduces costs. Here it looks like there is one less part (the silicone ring), which I believe makes it cheaper to build, cuts on supplies (no more need for silicone), and improves recyclability, which is good for the image and maybe some regulations. I do…

> I hope it is less expensive. So do the shareholders. Less cost == more profit.

You say this as if it's a bad thing? I don't see the need to be pesemistic about this.
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