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In that vein, I’ve noticed how little many seemingly progressive companies care about plastic waste. Lots of products that I would think are meant to cater to a
by TaylorAlexander 8y ago
In that vein, I’ve noticed how little many seemingly progressive companies care about plastic waste. Lots of products that I would think are meant to cater to a progressive, “green” crowd use thick packaging apparently to give the product a premium feel. Hint brand water is one example, and a bag of Forager chips I had recently did this too. The thick plastic gives the product a premium feel but is utterly destructive to the earth. However the negative effects are rarely witnessed by either the producers or the consumers, and so they both benefit from the fictional belief that this behavior is okay.
I don’t mean to single out just these manufacturers, as all profit seeking organizations seem to behave in this way where the harms of their actions are quietly ignored. Consumers buy in to this equally, or make some off hand remark about the waste and keep on going. It’s a cultural issue for sure, and I agree that exporting this way of life to places even less equipped to handle it is yet another of those unseen harms we all happily allow ourselves to ignore.
My hope is to combat all these issues by fighting to change our culture at home to one that is radically waste free. We can use the privilege that got us in to this position to help get out of it. We can learn to be waste free. Unfortunately we’re hooked on the disposable culture bad, and I’m not sure if we’ll ever get ourselves off it. We could, but time will tell if we care enough and are creative enough to do it.
- jacobolus 8y agoProducts like chips should be forced to use biodegradable bags (whether wax paper, bioplastics, ...). Similarly, disposable drinking straws, cutlery, the little wrappers they come in, etc. should be biodegradable. At most it might cost a few cents more per unit, but when millions of them get dumped in a river somewhere, they won’t stay there permanently. Trying to eliminate packaging altogether is hopeless at this point, I’d wager.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoPepsico's SunChips use a biodegradable bag [1], so it is possible. [1] https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/03/18/pepsis-biodegradable-backlash-snack-bag-was-too-noisy https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/03/18/pepsis-biodegradabl...
- zeth___ 8y agoSure in the third world. Doing that in the first world makes about as much sense as a tax on bowel movements because people in India don't use toilets and we need to pay for the increase in communicable diseases.
- mikepurvis 8y agoWe noticed this recently with the Quip toothbrush. The whole concept is reasonable, and I get that they're limited to some degree by hygiene regulations, but it's just nuts that your brush tip "refill" shows up every three months in a think, nalgene-bottle-like enclosure. Which is apparently itself recyclable, but it feels like there's got to be a better way. Quip's statement on the matter: https://help.getquip.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000320463-Is-quip-sustainable- https://help.getquip.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000320463-Is-q...