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I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfe
by chongli 6y ago
I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it.
This is one of the big problems I have with recycling. When I was a kid in school (throughout the 90’s), we learned the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle. Notice that recycle is last on the list.
The list is in order of increasing waste for a very good reason. We should first strive to reduce the amount of wasteful stuff we purchase, barring that we should try to reuse things around the house (plastic bags, containers, etc), and finally if we can’t do either we should recycle the stuff to try and recover the materials.
Nowadays I don’t hear about the 3 R’s anymore. It’s become all about people dumping everything in a box and making it somebody else’s problem, just as trash was in the first place.
- masklinn 6y ago> I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house. Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of it. Recyclers are downstream from consumers. They can’t stop consumers from throwing away their pringles cans, and until Kellogg’s starts bulk-selling Pringles in bags… people will throw cans away, there’s noly do many cans you can find a use for. I can’t find any specific production numbers but the internet tells me Kellogg’s sells for billions in snacks and pringles are a significant fraction of that. A Pringle can is a buck or two, meaning 6 figures Pringle cans being sold every year, if not 7.
- adingus 6y agoMaybe they can progressively make Pringles cans bigger so you can store your old cans inside your new cans.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoThe traditional thing to do is to make packaging smaller (while keeping price the same) - so you'd get to store your new cans in your old cans.
- Scoundreller 6y agoThe tradition is to keep the packaging the same, but less content. The same packaging for less should be a crime with bankrupting fines.
- PostOnce 6y agoIt's illegal alright https://www.npr.org/2016/04/20/474935457/planet-money-class-action-lawsuit https://www.npr.org/2016/04/20/474935457/planet-money-class-... https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/04/15/474406842/episode-696-class-action https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/04/15/474406842/epis...
- Scoundreller 6y agoTrick is to fluff up your product more.
- FatalLogic 6y agoThis scenario inevitably ends up with the solar system inside a very big Pringles can
- war1025 6y agoUniversal Pringles Cans! (A play on Universal Paperclips [1], which was featured on here earlier this week) [1] https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html
- sundvor 6y agoPringles - Dyson edition!
- adingus 6y agoI think by that time we'll have figured out how to safely store or reuse Pringles cans. Then we can apply the same method to nuclear waste and all of our problems will be solved.
- chongli 6y agoThat’s where the first R comes in. Only buy as many Pringles cans as you can reuse. People don’t want to do that either, though, because Pringles are addictive. That may be the root problem. There’s no way they’ll sell Pringles in bags though; they’re way too delicate for anything but a purpose-built rigid container.
- masklinn 6y ago> That’s where the first R comes in. Only buy as many Pringles cans as you can reuse. People don’t want to do that either, though, because Pringles are addictive. That may be the root problem. The first R is already not an option, people who buy pringles want pringles, otherwise they wouldn’t be buying that. Short of making pringles illegal you’re not going to change this. > There’s no way they’ll sell Pringles in bags though; they’re way too delicate for anything but a purpose-built rigid container. Pringles were literally invented because potato chips were too fragile at a time when shipping bags of chips and having them survive the transit was basically a bad bet. Chips remain sold in bags to this day.
- userbinator 6y agoChips remain sold in bags to this day. Chips which are much thicker than Pringles.
- masklinn 6y agoNo.
- pessimizer 6y ago> Only buy as many Pringles cans as you can reuse. So about six cans of Pringles per lifetime?
- chongli 6y agoNo, they wear out eventually and need replacing.
- margo209320 6y ago> meaning 6 figures Pringle cans being sold every year, if not 7 The article states "three million cans are made across Europe every day". That's 10 figures annually in Europe alone.
- joedevon 6y agoSince Pringles tastes like cardboard, why don't they start making the can out of Pringles?
- treeman79 6y agoSalty cardboard.
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y agoKellogs owns Pringles now? That is news to me. How does that work for the brand image of healthy nutrition?
- learnstats2 6y agoWhat do you use Pringles cans for that makes them so useful: say you were buying one per week?
- sp332 6y agoI can think of more uses if you cut them shorter. Pencil holder, ... ok that's it.
- chongli 6y agoI don’t buy one per week. Maybe a few cans per year. I use them for storing sleeves of soda crackers (they fit perfectly even though the crackers are squares). They’re also good for storing snacks of various kinds, dry spaghetti noodles (or any pasta, really). Pretty much any dry goods that you don’t want crushed are a great fit!
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoCool! I'll have to go out and buy some Pringles, I need those things done. Normally I don't buy Pringles at all, not in decades. Because, honestly, they're the consistency of pasteboard and taste of mostly salt. The bottom rung on the snack ladder. I snack on nothing instead of Pringles if that's the only option. But the can! That seems worthwhile now that you call out its many uses.
- fredophile 6y agoWouldn't it be better to find someone that likes Pringles and take their can when they're done? Buying something you don't enjoy so you can reuse the packaging, that most people throw away, seems like a poor solution.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoYeah but would I store food in a paperboard can that somebody else had grubbed their hands around in? Maybe its not dooable.
- 6y ago
- takeda 6y ago> Nowadays I don’t hear about the 3 R’s anymore. It’s become all about people dumping everything in a box and making it somebody else’s problem, just as trash was in the first place. That's because companies don't want us to reduce or in many cases reuse, but recycle makes everyone feel good inside (even though in many cases even that doesn't happen, but we as consumers don't care).
- rexpop 6y ago> companies don't want Thank you for saying this. It's crucial that we recognize how consent is manufactured by corporate propaganda that goes way beyond the simplistic "buy our product!" messaging that folks normally think of. Our reality is dictated by private companies to suit their bottom lines. We've got to be very careful to make sure we know what's good for us, what we want, and how to get it. Corporate propaganda inserts memetic man-in-the-middle attacks at every step in that line of reasoning.
- audiometry 6y agoThey are more recyclable (reusable) now as the inside doesn’t have a sharp edge ring on the inside. Remember when I was a kid, reach your arm the full way in, you get scratched up pulling it out.
- 7952 6y agoThe weird thing about plastic is that it is often too flimsy to easily reuse but will still survive for thousands of years in the environment. I wonder if it would make sense to require these items to be more substantial and then make reuse financially unavoidable. So the only way to buy bottled water would be in a reusable container. You would either return it for a deposit or reuse it yourself.