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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

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Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#341

Post by ska »

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.

I've read the main contributor to microplastics is car tires. Do you have an idea if these types of consumer containers are a significant source?

Agree the incentives are screwed up, and that could help.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#342

Post by duderific »

lobochrome wrote: post #294
RandallBrown wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Collection happens at central points shared by a few houses. So if you fuck it up, your neighbors will know.

> Collection happens through individual small trucks and the guy check the items and sort them directly into larger bins. If you made a mistake they will label it and leave it behind.

See, that's the key. In my area, we have compost, recycling and trash bins for each home. What you put in it is up to your moral compass. Nobody is checking or seeing what you put in there. If there was some peer pressure around that, things would change rather quickly, I'd imagine. Though I can't see such a system emerging in the states. People like to do their own thing, individually, and not be bothered with it.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#343

Post by astrobe_ »

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.

Or let people refill their bottles at the shop/mall like from a beer keg. But it probably would be a hassle to deal with for the seller, so it won't probably won't happen.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#344

Post by neom »

adolph wrote: post #211
neom wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paid for the service? I grew up in Scotland, milk and meat came from the farms every morning (90s), you'd put your order in the old milk bottle with the money and they'd leave whatever your order was. I seem to recall it was 50p for most type of milk and 75p for creams. (Except the BSE years.. shudder ugh the BSE years.)

[Edit] Do you think that the Aphex Twin song Milkman makes reference to this lack of milk delivery during this period? Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. . . . Spread to humans is believed to result in variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD). As of 2018, a total of 231 cases of vCJD had been reported glo…

I just looked into it a bit. Timeline makes a lot of sense, Milkman was released in 1996, right during the height of the precautions (some farm kids couldn't come to school, needed to get sprayed down with some chemicals when we went into the high school, every shop/library/etc had a bucket of alcohol you walked through. However, it seems James was living in London during that period, and I don't think the restrictions in the cities were are harsh as the country. Interesting theory tho, I like it. :)

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#345

Post by coryrc »

ArnoVW wrote: post #278
jgalt212 wrote: post #213

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. 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 know this will blow your mind, but where I do my shopping (France) this exists in many places and there are no queues. It takes 1 minute more to fill a bag or bottle. But it prevents a heck of a lot of packaging. And I can take precisely the quantity I want, in the container that I want. Perhaps you prefer the “old” way. Perhaps it is faster. But if we can not make tiny changes like that, how will we explain oursel…

Do you know why medicines have a seal on them in the USA?

https://www.packaging-gateway.com/comment/tylenol-murders-fo...

There are psychos all over America. Wanton violence and anti-social behaviour are cultural norm. You can get shot because someone else looked at another person. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Kansas_City_parade_shoo...

We can't have nice things because we don't enforce any standard of conduct. Progressives are more concerned about git branch names than ensuring children actually learn something in school.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#346

Post by bastawhiz »

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.

In fairness, for ketchup specifically, glass bottles are an incredible nuisance.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#347

Post by pfdietz »

RandallBrown wrote: post #299
pfdietz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view recycling schemes for plastics as a way to make burning the stuff more convenient. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. After fossil fuels are done, the reduced carbon in the waste stream (including plastics, but also cellulosic materials) will become more valuable as feedstock for various chemical processes. Garbage refining will be a thing. It will be an aggressive chemical endeavor, more akin to petroleum…

There's a book I read as a kid that takes place in the sort of near future after we've run out of oil. The only people that have plastic in this future society are extremely wealthy and poor people "mine" old landfills looking for plastic to sell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ear,_the_Eye_and_the_Arm

That's not plausible, IMO. Plastic may become somewhat more expensive, but it doesn't require fossil fuels. Overall secular increase in societal wealth should overcome any transient increase in price.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#349

Post by AlecSchueler »

stavros wrote: post #96
AlecSchueler wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a scam perpetuated by the plastic industry What does this actually mean and what are you basing it on? Without any sources or references it reads a bit like FUD.

There have been a few articles about that recently. However, you can notice it for yourself if you notice how many products claim to be "recyclable" but how few are recycled. If recycling were widespread, you'd expect the vast majority of products to be made with recycled plastic.

The ineffectives of recycling is one thing, but the person above posited that the paid industry were up to no good as well.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#350

Post by AlecSchueler »

Ensorceled wrote: post #125
AlecSchueler wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a scam perpetuated by the plastic industry What does this actually mean and what are you basing it on? Without any sources or references it reads a bit like FUD.

It takes mere moments to google "how much plastic is actually recycled" You would have to be naive to believe that executives in the petroleum and plastic industries are unaware of how little plastic is actually recycled rather than complicit.

I'm aware of how much plastic is recycled. I'm not convinced that the plastic industry conspired to pull the wool over the publics eyes about it.
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