7 ms·

Recycling is the wrong, least efficient, laziest solution to the problem of packaging. Why does every little thing need to come packaged in its own cocoon of pl

by maxaf 7y ago

Recycling is the wrong, least efficient, laziest solution to the problem of packaging. Why does every little thing need to come packaged in its own cocoon of plastic or paper? Beats me. Consumers have become lazy: they expect purchasing and consuming to be the extent of their participation in the long supply chain through which our goods travel. This tends to externalize the environmental costs of consumption to all of us. Recycling would be unnecessary if consumers were held accountable for properly obtaining and reusing materials. Our laziness will kill us all: mark my words.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
I agree. Packaging needs to be much more expensive. Online ordering makes things much worse. Now goods are packed in 3 or 4 layers which then get thrown away quickly.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  I find it funny how amazon will ship in a box or padded envelope, while random Chinese sellers on AliExpress will use something slightly thicker than cellophane.
  - tomp 7y ago
    But box is just paper, which literally grows on trees.
    - maccard 7y ago
      And water, and energy. A lot of both.
      - tomp 7y ago
        Energy is free. Sun's light is either hitting plants (that use it to grow) or it's hitting the ground. Is water a big problem, in e.g. Europe? No idea honestly... it's obviously 100% recyclable, but it might be in the wrong place at the wrong time...
        rtkwe 7y ago
        It does consume nutrients from the soil which would need to be replenished eventually on tree farm plots.
- maccard 7y ago
  > Now goods are packed in 3 or 4 layers which then get thrown away quickly. Just so you konw, this isn't new with online shopping. All of that packaging is thrown away by the retailer if you buy it from a store.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Not nearly as much. Items would be shipped on pallets to stores generally or come in larger numbers in a bigger box.
    - maccard 7y ago
      I worked in retail about 10 years ago, in a "Mom and pop" Computer store. We would receive hard drives in their retail boxes, with a plastic bag, a cardboard sleeve, and then another box around 10 or so, all wrapped in plastic. I would assume that before they got to me, those boxes were sent on pallets which were also shrink wrapped. We would throw all that away before a customer ever saw it.
codingdave 7y ago
> Why does every little thing need to come packaged in its own cocoon of plastic or paper? It started as security. Packaging used to be way simpler. First, packaging got stronger on medicines and food to prevent tampering, mostly after the incident when someone put cyanide in Tylenol. It grew from there - anti-tempering, anti-theft, protection for rough handling during shipping, as shipping speeds increased. The reasons kept growing, and the packaging keeps growing. I fully agree that we can cut back. But like most aspects of society, you need to first understand the drivers that got us where we are, and then attack the problem by discussing whether our current solutions are truly the right answer to those problems.
- hairytrog 7y ago
  hygiene. I wonder if you could quantify the reduction in disease (and so perhaps a dollar value associated with lower healthcare costs, less sickbays, less death) that can attributed to packaging which essentially preserves factory sterilization into the market.
- mc32 7y ago
  That is part of it for sure (recently a prankster was licking ice cream tubs at a grocery store, so it’s still a concern) and there was some copying of Japanese packaging aesthetic to mimic or to convey the idea of premium product, high class product.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  But you’d think containerization would’ve reduced packaging requirements a bit. Put everything in your container and the container keeps it secure until it’s at its destination.
  - codingdave 7y ago
    Maybe if you own your own container and control it 100%, but for many shippers, that it not the case. They are one item amongst many, thrown together with everything else. So it is worse. Your packaging has to defend itself from everything else in the container. It may get tossed around by multiple middle-men, buried under heavier objects and boxes, and has to protect itself in case an object above yours breaks and spills who knows what all over your box. And what if the container is somewhat empty and ends up on rough seas? It could get rolled like dice for days.
herogreen 7y ago
On top of that most of the recycling is actually downcycling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downcycling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downcycling
mrob 7y ago
Some products do have excessive packaging, but most packaging is there for good reasons. You need to consider the embedded energy and resources used to make the product, and how the packaging reduces the risk of wasting them if the product is damaged or destroyed. There are cases where the total environmental impact of plastic packaging is very likely better than the alternatives, e.g. shrink-wrapping a cucumber more than doubles the shelf-life at ambient conditions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3550898/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3550898/ And if the plastic is then disposed of in landfill then it doubles as carbon sequestration.
- gowld 7y ago
  > And if the plastic is then disposed of in landfill then it doubles as carbon sequestration. Where does plastic come from, if not desequestered carbon? Does it consume CO2 from the air?
  - mrob 7y ago
    It comes from desequestered carbon, but importantly, it's very difficult to re-desequester it. Plastic in landfill is mixed with other waste and uneconomic to recover. It's enforcing "keep it in the ground" (not completely, because the manufacturing and transport release CO2, but better than nothing).
bashmelek 7y ago
I've had a few wacky ideas for fixing the problem of overpackaging. Theory: the greenest packaging is none at all, the second greenest is the one you eat. In medieval times they would bake and transport food in a "pie", a hard shell of bread. Inedible for humans, but the pig your family had could dispose of it easily.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
BurningFrog 7y ago
This is one of my least favorite genres: "Industry X does things I don't understand. The millions of professionals working in that industry must be clueless fools, and should follow my hunch instead!"
reaperducer 7y ago
I'm routinely amazed by the things that I buy which are wrapped in plastic that could just as easily be wrapped in paper or cardboard or something else that biodegrades. I suspect it's simply because the food companies have already bought the plastic-wrapping machines and don't want to invest the money in new processes. But when I'm in the store, I will routinely choose an item wrapped in paper or paperboard over something in plastic.
- lukeschlather 7y ago
  The primary goal with food packaging is that the food doesn't biodegrade before someone eats it. From an environmental standpoint, if wrapping a food item in plastic causes a 5% reduction in food waste vs. other packaging, it's a clear unambiguous benefit to use plastic.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    I can understand that for things that come into contact with the food, but not all of the packaging does. For example, the Tillamook cheese snacks are individually-wrapped planks of cheese. For that, I understand. But why do the ten plastic-wrapped cheese planks then need to be wrapped in another plastic bag?
maccard 7y ago
> Consumers have become lazy: they expect purchasing and consuming to be the extent of their participation in the long supply chain through which our goods travel This is a little unfair on "consumers". I don't have a choice in how my local supermarket packages its products. I bring my own containers to the butcher, I bring my own bags for fruit and veg, and we still end up with at least one bin worth of waste every week. That's not counting the packaging that the products are shipped to my local stores in either. Consumers aren't lazy, companies are cheap. it's cheaper to wrap something in LDPE + friends, and transport it across <insert landmass here>, then force the consumer to pay to dispose of it (and their local authority to bear the brunt of managing it), than it is for the manufacturer to make it closer and get it to me without shrink wrapping. Until suppliers, manufacturers, retailers are held responsible, consumers are _not_ the lazy ones, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still try.
ivan_ah 7y ago
Very true. At some points some friends were having a contest about most packaging needed for their meal. I don't remember who the "winner" was, but there was at least "bag-bag-box-bag" combos and up! (this was in the UK, but I bet US can "score" pretty high too)

by maxaf 7y ago

Ididntdothis 7y ago

I agree. Packaging needs to be much more expensive. Online ordering makes things much worse. Now goods are packed in 3 or 4 layers which then get thrown away quickly.

Scoundreller 7y ago
I find it funny how amazon will ship in a box or padded envelope, while random Chinese sellers on AliExpress will use something slightly thicker than cellophane.
- tomp 7y ago
  But box is just paper, which literally grows on trees.
  - maccard 7y ago
    And water, and energy. A lot of both.
    - tomp 7y ago
      Energy is free. Sun's light is either hitting plants (that use it to grow) or it's hitting the ground. Is water a big problem, in e.g. Europe? No idea honestly... it's obviously 100% recyclable, but it might be in the wrong place at the wrong time...
      - rtkwe 7y ago
        It does consume nutrients from the soil which would need to be replenished eventually on tree farm plots.
maccard 7y ago
> Now goods are packed in 3 or 4 layers which then get thrown away quickly. Just so you konw, this isn't new with online shopping. All of that packaging is thrown away by the retailer if you buy it from a store.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Not nearly as much. Items would be shipped on pallets to stores generally or come in larger numbers in a bigger box.
  - maccard 7y ago
    I worked in retail about 10 years ago, in a "Mom and pop" Computer store. We would receive hard drives in their retail boxes, with a plastic bag, a cardboard sleeve, and then another box around 10 or so, all wrapped in plastic. I would assume that before they got to me, those boxes were sent on pallets which were also shrink wrapped. We would throw all that away before a customer ever saw it.

codingdave 7y ago

> Why does every little thing need to come packaged in its own cocoon of plastic or paper? It started as security. Packaging used to be way simpler. First, packaging got stronger on medicines and food to prevent tampering, mostly after the incident when someone put cyanide in Tylenol. It grew from there - anti-tempering, anti-theft, protection for rough handling during shipping, as shipping speeds increased. The reasons kept growing, and the packaging keeps growing. I fully agree that we can cut back. But like most aspects of society, you need to first understand the drivers that got us where we are, and then attack the problem by discussing whether our current solutions are truly the right answer to those problems.

hairytrog 7y ago
hygiene. I wonder if you could quantify the reduction in disease (and so perhaps a dollar value associated with lower healthcare costs, less sickbays, less death) that can attributed to packaging which essentially preserves factory sterilization into the market.
mc32 7y ago
That is part of it for sure (recently a prankster was licking ice cream tubs at a grocery store, so it’s still a concern) and there was some copying of Japanese packaging aesthetic to mimic or to convey the idea of premium product, high class product.
Scoundreller 7y ago
But you’d think containerization would’ve reduced packaging requirements a bit. Put everything in your container and the container keeps it secure until it’s at its destination.
- codingdave 7y ago
  Maybe if you own your own container and control it 100%, but for many shippers, that it not the case. They are one item amongst many, thrown together with everything else. So it is worse. Your packaging has to defend itself from everything else in the container. It may get tossed around by multiple middle-men, buried under heavier objects and boxes, and has to protect itself in case an object above yours breaks and spills who knows what all over your box. And what if the container is somewhat empty and ends up on rough seas? It could get rolled like dice for days.

herogreen 7y ago

On top of that most of the recycling is actually downcycling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downcycling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downcycling

mrob 7y ago

Some products do have excessive packaging, but most packaging is there for good reasons. You need to consider the embedded energy and resources used to make the product, and how the packaging reduces the risk of wasting them if the product is damaged or destroyed. There are cases where the total environmental impact of plastic packaging is very likely better than the alternatives, e.g. shrink-wrapping a cucumber more than doubles the shelf-life at ambient conditions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3550898/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3550898/ And if the plastic is then disposed of in landfill then it doubles as carbon sequestration.

gowld 7y ago
> And if the plastic is then disposed of in landfill then it doubles as carbon sequestration. Where does plastic come from, if not desequestered carbon? Does it consume CO2 from the air?
- mrob 7y ago
  It comes from desequestered carbon, but importantly, it's very difficult to re-desequester it. Plastic in landfill is mixed with other waste and uneconomic to recover. It's enforcing "keep it in the ground" (not completely, because the manufacturing and transport release CO2, but better than nothing).

bashmelek 7y ago

I've had a few wacky ideas for fixing the problem of overpackaging. Theory: the greenest packaging is none at all, the second greenest is the one you eat. In medieval times they would bake and transport food in a "pie", a hard shell of bread. Inedible for humans, but the pig your family had could dispose of it easily.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

BurningFrog 7y ago

This is one of my least favorite genres: "Industry X does things I don't understand. The millions of professionals working in that industry must be clueless fools, and should follow my hunch instead!"

reaperducer 7y ago

I'm routinely amazed by the things that I buy which are wrapped in plastic that could just as easily be wrapped in paper or cardboard or something else that biodegrades. I suspect it's simply because the food companies have already bought the plastic-wrapping machines and don't want to invest the money in new processes. But when I'm in the store, I will routinely choose an item wrapped in paper or paperboard over something in plastic.

lukeschlather 7y ago
The primary goal with food packaging is that the food doesn't biodegrade before someone eats it. From an environmental standpoint, if wrapping a food item in plastic causes a 5% reduction in food waste vs. other packaging, it's a clear unambiguous benefit to use plastic.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I can understand that for things that come into contact with the food, but not all of the packaging does. For example, the Tillamook cheese snacks are individually-wrapped planks of cheese. For that, I understand. But why do the ten plastic-wrapped cheese planks then need to be wrapped in another plastic bag?

maccard 7y ago

> Consumers have become lazy: they expect purchasing and consuming to be the extent of their participation in the long supply chain through which our goods travel This is a little unfair on "consumers". I don't have a choice in how my local supermarket packages its products. I bring my own containers to the butcher, I bring my own bags for fruit and veg, and we still end up with at least one bin worth of waste every week. That's not counting the packaging that the products are shipped to my local stores in either. Consumers aren't lazy, companies are cheap. it's cheaper to wrap something in LDPE + friends, and transport it across <insert landmass here>, then force the consumer to pay to dispose of it (and their local authority to bear the brunt of managing it), than it is for the manufacturer to make it closer and get it to me without shrink wrapping. Until suppliers, manufacturers, retailers are held responsible, consumers are _not_ the lazy ones, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still try.

ivan_ah 7y ago

Very true. At some points some friends were having a contest about most packaging needed for their meal. I don't remember who the "winner" was, but there was at least "bag-bag-box-bag" combos and up! (this was in the UK, but I bet US can "score" pretty high too)