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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

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Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born in the 50's. Growing up, the worst thing about the garbage generated at home was that it had to go into leftover paper bags from the grocery store because plastic garbage bags didn't exist. And those bags went into metal garbage cans outside the house, because plastic garbage cans didn't exist, and those garbage cans were always dented, rusty, and with lids that quickly stopped sealing properly. What a mes…

> What a mess. Nothing compared to https://www.google.com/search?q=landfill+plastic&tbm=isch

Plastic trash is supposed to be burned or recycled

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#52
post #44
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.

Glass is in no way environmentally friendly. It takes a huge amount of energy to produce glass, and a singel glass bottle requires a lot of it. PET bottle recycling is the closest we got to a functional plastic recycling system.

Glass is also very heavy, which means that transporting glass-packaged goods requires much more energy than transporting e.g. plastic bottles.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Germany recycle 60% of its plastic waste? There is obviously hope, just not enough incentive because it costs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container-deposit_legislation I can't even begin to imagine the discourse (and "experts" brought on-air at Fox News) that would take place if such legislation was proposed in the US.

We do. As Fox News likes to point out, it's hard to find a place that'll actually let you recycle for the full refund.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#55
post #8
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 the 80s in the UK we had milk delivered every morning in glass bottles by a huge fleet of electric vehicles. The empty bottles were left out, collected by the milkman, sterilised and reused. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float

In NZ - ditto growing up had the milk delivery service. Now it was a long distance memory until we moved to a smaller town/city. To our surprise one of the independent milk companies had a delivery service and up until a few months ago there was a glass bottle based delivery service of proper milk (the kind with thick fat/cream on the top..). Absolutely magic.

Alas cost of living took hold and they stopped the service, so sadly off to the store for the milk now. They didn't even put up an option of 'we can't afford to keep this going, so how much would you pay extra for it'

I bet they would have been surprised what people would illogically pay to have their milk and eggs delivered...

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#56
post #44
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.

Glass is in no way environmentally friendly. It takes a huge amount of energy to produce glass, and a singel glass bottle requires a lot of it. PET bottle recycling is the closest we got to a functional plastic recycling system.

The difference is that glass bottles were consigned and re-used. Also energy use does not tell the whole story and one should consider the impact of plastic that is not recycled or worse, left adrift in the sea or in our rivers.

You make a good point and it can be interesting to know how many use of a bottle are required until it becomes more energy-efficient compared to disposable plastic, etc.

The shift to the all plastic packaging paradigm was made when companies found out that they could simply let the consumers deal with the packaging once the product was consumed instead of having to get it back from their hands and process it. Hence the modern plastic dystopia.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#57
post #8
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 the 80s in the UK we had milk delivered every morning in glass bottles by a huge fleet of electric vehicles. The empty bottles were left out, collected by the milkman, sterilised and reused. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float

And fizzy pop! I dare say every town had one. In Sunderland we had Sykes. They’d come round once a week; you left your old bottles out front and they’d be swapped out for new.

I always loved dandelion & burdock.

https://www.sunderlandecho.com/heritage-and-retro/retro/sars...

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#58
post #31
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.

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.

That’s obscene. My family does maybe 1.5 small bags of non compostable/recyclable each week - Brabantia X size

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#59
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.

The glass bottles of Heinz are available right next to the plastic ones. So in the case of ketchup at least I think people choose the plastic ones.

Re: Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap

#60
post #47
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…

Check your municipal waste centre. Mine, in Limburg (NL), recycles diapers.
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