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That's a perfectly valid point, above, which definitely should not have been downvoted. This business about "just ship it back to us and we'll recycle it" is o

That's a perfectly valid point, above, which definitely should not have been downvoted. This business about "just ship it back to us and we'll recycle it" is obviously suspect. If anything it sounds like a scheme they came up with so they could check some box in some policy subscription about "offering recycling opportunities at all stages in the supply chain", or something similar. Even though when you think about, it's obviously how wasteful that "recycling" route is. A loophole, in other words.

dominotw 9y ago
they are obviously counting on the fact that their customers are 1. lazy/busy 2. don't care that much about recycling.
bkanber 9y ago
It's not that obvious and not so much a loophole. Shipping is more efficient than you give credit for (eg shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling [0]), and most likely recycling back to them is advantageous. The gel packs are reusable, you ship them 10 at a time, and "Reuse" is better than "Recycle" in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recycling.waste https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recyclin...
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling That's shipping it from the local recycling plant, ton for ton. But the "net benefit" of shipping millions of box of crumbled aluminum and plastic wrappers back to Blue Apron (then unpacking and sorting them)? As if anyone has time for that, anyway (when most of us have time to do the dishes and put out the trash)? That's where things start to look suspect. The gel packs are reusable, Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. But hey, it sure sounds nice enough as a little green checkbox on some "sustainability architect"'s slide presentation somewhere, I'm sure.
  - bkanber 9y ago
    > Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. No -- you ship the gel packs back to Blue Apron and they reuse them. Reuse >> recycling, BTW. I just did a back of the envelope calc for the carbon footprint of shipping your gel packs back to them (assuming shipping by truck 2,000km). It's about 300 grams of CO2. A gallon of gasoline puts about 10kg of CO2 in the air. If you were to drive to the supermarket a mile away, just your trip in the car puts 800g of CO2 in the air (assuming 25 mpg).
    - kafkaesq 9y ago
      Something tells me a proper analysis of the net impact of their propose recycling scheme would be a bit more involved than the two numbers you came up with (and leaving aside such questions of how many customers will actually participate; and the fact that having all those gel packs that have been handled by N customers in the past be send in with my food shipments sounds, well, kind of gross). That is, at the end of the day, it still sounds -- suspect.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]

dominotw 9y ago

they are obviously counting on the fact that their customers are 1. lazy/busy 2. don't care that much about recycling.

bkanber 9y ago

It's not that obvious and not so much a loophole. Shipping is more efficient than you give credit for (eg shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling [0]), and most likely recycling back to them is advantageous. The gel packs are reusable, you ship them 10 at a time, and "Reuse" is better than "Recycle" in "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recycling.waste https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/19/recyclin...

kafkaesq 9y ago
shipping recyclables from UK to China is still net-beneficial as opposed to landfilling That's shipping it from the local recycling plant, ton for ton. But the "net benefit" of shipping millions of box of crumbled aluminum and plastic wrappers back to Blue Apron (then unpacking and sorting them)? As if anyone has time for that, anyway (when most of us have time to do the dishes and put out the trash)? That's where things start to look suspect. The gel packs are reusable, Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. But hey, it sure sounds nice enough as a little green checkbox on some "sustainability architect"'s slide presentation somewhere, I'm sure.
- bkanber 9y ago
  > Yeah, like all those soaps and mini-shampoo bottles we steal from hotels and intend to "use" someday, too. No -- you ship the gel packs back to Blue Apron and they reuse them. Reuse >> recycling, BTW. I just did a back of the envelope calc for the carbon footprint of shipping your gel packs back to them (assuming shipping by truck 2,000km). It's about 300 grams of CO2. A gallon of gasoline puts about 10kg of CO2 in the air. If you were to drive to the supermarket a mile away, just your trip in the car puts 800g of CO2 in the air (assuming 25 mpg).
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    Something tells me a proper analysis of the net impact of their propose recycling scheme would be a bit more involved than the two numbers you came up with (and leaving aside such questions of how many customers will actually participate; and the fact that having all those gel packs that have been handled by N customers in the past be send in with my food shipments sounds, well, kind of gross). That is, at the end of the day, it still sounds -- suspect.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]