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Heinz’s sustainable ketchup cap
- throw1231312 3y ago> Heinz has taken a major step forward for sustainable packaging with the introduction of .... > The new cap's uniform composition of polypropylene (PP) simplifies recycling and ... > Currently only about 3% of PP products are being recycled in the United States.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- obmelvin 3y agoUntil someone develops some sort of multi-spectral imaging that can reliably sort plastic based on it's composition there's little hope of recycling plastic. And then you still need different enzymes that can break down different compositions. It's sad, but realistically almost all plastic one disposes of needs to go in the trash can rather than recycling. You can't even rely on dedicated collection - https://abcnews.go.com/US/put-dozens-trackers-plastic-bags-recycling-trashed/story?id=99509422 https://abcnews.go.com/US/put-dozens-trackers-plastic-bags-r...
- asdff 3y agoI wonder how much plastic you'd need to pile up to start pressing out oil again at the bottom of the pile?
- actionfromafar 3y agoYou mean ... by gravity? :-D
- robinwa 3y agoConventional multispectral and hyperspectral can't keep up (and integrate well) into existing sorting lines. They induce a slow-down in conveyer belt speeds or you have to install splitters and buy multiple $100K cameras. (we're working to solve this problem though in the classic VC backed way - DM for more information!)
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoHow does Germany recycle 60% of its plastic waste? There is obviously hope, just not enough incentive because it costs.
- throw1231312 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container-deposit_legislation 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.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rocqua 3y agoA few states in the US as per your link, do have this system
- throw1231312 3y agoDifferences: * Single-use plastic bottle have a 25 cent deposit in Germany. This is 5x the 5cents in California. * Germany has enacted this legislation federally. * The legislation also requires that any retailer that sells plastic bottles (and glass bottles) must also facilitate the return of these bottles. I lived in California for a couple of years. I never saw a recycling machine at any Safeway, Walgreens or even Whole Foods while I was there. The closest thing to a "recycling machine" is the army of homeless people pushing trollies filled with bottles to take to a recycling center. I don't think that really counts.
- Symbiote 3y agoMichigan does have the sorting machines at supermarkets, just like in Germany. Michigan also has a 10¢ deposit.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
- Symbiote 3y agoCopenhagen recycles 70% of collected plastic, with the rest incinerated (used for heating homes, I think). Almost all plastic packaging is collected, including wrappers and trays. https://affald.kk.dk/affaldsfraktion/saadan-sorterer-du-plast https://affald.kk.dk/affaldsfraktion/saadan-sorterer-du-plas... (in Danish)
- its-summertime 3y agoThe last time I saw such numbers for impractical-to-recycle stuff like thins and foamed plastics, it ended up that the companies were just lying https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/redcycle-soft-plastics-recycling-update/103135156 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/redcycle-soft-plastic...
- MyFirstSass 3y agoIt's just not possible in any way to recycle 70%! Politician number fudging like this completely destroys the reputation of these initiatives. I'm still not convinced after looking at the actual numbers, that "recycling", putting stuff into 6 different bins etc, makes any difference at all in the grand scheme og things. Instead it's a big show hiding the fact that the problem is with over-consumption and non degradable materials being legal in the first place. Bottle and glass recycling for money seems to be semi working though but then we'll need QR codes on each item, better but still not eliminating the transport and seperation issues, and the fact that a lot of recycling is actually dumping stuff on poor people far away, and that industry is polluting way more than end consumers. As some people have pointed out it's actually the opposite, a smokescreen invented by the industry in the 90's to shift responsibility to the consumer so you do "some magic complex performance" at home and think now it's ok while everything just continues as is defacto, ie. worse than doing nothing. Instead we should ban or tax non degradable materials, and stick to the few working areas while regulating industry and materials even though it'l be rough until we're forced to create better materials.
- mavhc 3y agoI have 3 bins (rubbish; garden waste; paper/soft plastic/glass), and take thin plastic and tetrapaks to the supermarket to be recycled. Takes me months to fill the rubbish bin
- lukan 3y agoI would argue burning it (and maybe capture the generated CO2) is the only recycling making any sense with the plastic garbage we have. And then stop using it for everything and start classifying/labeling the plastics where we neee them, so they can be sorted automatically later so then you can recycle them. Here in germany some sort of plastic recycling actually works, because there is a deposit fee on all plastic bottles - you bring them back to the supermarket to get it back - and then there is one source of the same plastic, that does get used for new products.
- sbierwagen 3y ago>Until someone develops some sort of multi-spectral imaging that can reliably sort plastic based on it's composition Funny you phrase it like that, because that's exactly what the STEINERT UniSort does. Plastic waste is finely shredded, dumped onto a conveyor belt, imaged, then passed over air puff sorters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3QHa9oQshw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3QHa9oQshw Is it worth it? Of course not. Far cheaper and easier just to burn it. But for EU nations that are really dedicated to recycling, it can be done.
- dgellow 3y agoA lots of recycled plastic (I mean what people put in the plastic recycling bin) in the EU ends up being burned. They are sorted, cleaned up, then packaged into burnable units, because it’s the most cost effective way to reuse it I see 42% “energy recovery” from https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20181212STO21610/plastic-waste-and-recycling-in-the-eu-facts-and-figures https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20181212STO... from 2018. I found this from January 2024: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-new-boost-for-jobs-growth-and-investment/file-strategy-on-plastics-in-the-circular-economy https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-new-b... > In Europe, about 40 % of post-consumer plastic waste is incinerated with energy recovery, and the rest is either landfilled or recycled. About half of the plastic waste collected and recycled is treated in the European Union; the other half is exported, mainly to China.
- squokko 3y agoThe recycling also doesn't achieve anything environmentally
- Ma8ee 3y agoThe recycling reduces the amount of oil that goes into new plastic, which eventually will be incinerated and contribute to the climate crisis.
- _cenw 3y agothe demand for non-virgin plastic is practically zero, while the cost is higher there are no economic incentives to use recycled plastic, and regulation mandating its use is minimal to non-existing. so most plastic that could be recycled isn't, and not because it isn't available/collected/sorted.
- seszett 3y agoIt seems though like many of the throwaway plastic containers I can find here like shampoo, water bottles, containers for sauces - NOT the Heinz ketchup bottle in my fridge though (which does say the body is recyclable but the cap is not) mention some percent of recycled plastic contents, from 90% to 20% in the items around me. So maybe it's more expensive but there seems to be some kind of incentive for these companies, even if it's just marketing.
- _cenw 3y agoFood containers are tricky. Huel ready-to-drink seems to be 49%, because they need the inner coating to be virgin plastic.
- Ma8ee 3y agoYes, processes that are bad for the environment is cheaper. I find that a failing of the capitalist system, not the recycling process. If externalities were properly priced, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
- yencabulator 3y agoI fully expect that what's really happening here is that it's slightly cheaper to manufacture the caps as a single mold, rather than needing to combine two parts.
- lp4vn 3y agoVery 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.
- dmitrygr 3y agoPlastic bottles weigh less and can be made thinner. Transportation costs dominate the cost of most consumables
- b112 3y agoWhich sort of highlights local vs national production and shipping. The local milkman of the 50s, did better with glass collecting and delivering milk. The national enterprise benefits, as you say, from weight reduction.
- actionfromafar 3y agoThe enterprise "benefits" because it completely off-loads the environmental impact to the tax payers.
- b112 3y agoIt does with glass, and the cleaning solutions, and the water used during re-use. I'm sure glass is far more environmentally sound, but to claim that glass production, glass cleaning(and the harsh chemicals and their production cost to the environment), and water for flushing afterwards are not relevant, would be wrong. So every business off-loads some environmental impact to the tax payer. My point? While your statement is true, it has nothing to do with how the business decision is made re: cost to the business. The metric used there is "what saves the business money".
- fendy3002 3y agoAnd as the cost of workforce increase, or in order to generate even more profit, using plastics enables industrial automation and removal of the delivery workforce.
- NoPedantsThanks 3y ago[dead]
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago[dead]
- londons_explore 3y agoIt does mean this cap is practically impossible to clean, and provides a lot of surface area and crevices for mould to grow or plasticizers to leak from the packaging into the product. All engineering is a tradeoff, and I would be interested to see how those factors were considered when doing the redesign.
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago> and provides a lot of surface area and crevices for mould to grow Isn't the whole reason Heinz ketchup is self stable is because it's too high in acidity for mold to even grow
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoIt's probably from added stabilizers and not acidity. Molds do well with acidic food, as well as sugary and salty
- rufus_foreman 3y agoHeinz ketchup ingredients: TOMATO CONCENTRATE FROM RED RIPE TOMATOES, DISTILLED VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, SALT, SPICE, ONION POWDER, NATURAL FLAVORING. -- https://www.heinz.com/products/00013000006408-tomato-ketchup https://www.heinz.com/products/00013000006408-tomato-ketchup
- reportgunner 3y agoI checked for my country (Slovakia in Europe) just out of curiosity: - tomatoes (148g for 100g of ketchup) - distilled vinegar - sugar - salt - spice and herb extract - spices https://www.grizly.sk/heinz-paradajkovy-kecup-jemny-570-g https://www.grizly.sk/heinz-paradajkovy-kecup-jemny-570-g
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoIt does look like there's no preservatives added to heinz. It appears the lack of mold growth in ketchup comes down to a combination of lower pH from the vinegar, and low water content by cooking it out of the tomatoes. According to some food safety experts, it's possible for mold to grow on ketchup, less so for pathogens. Keeping it cold will definitely extend the time it would take mold to root.
- tempestn 3y agoCouldn't be worse than the old caps with the silicone-it's impossible to get a small squirt from those things. You've either got nothing, or you're swimming in ketchup.
- obloid 3y agoI always popped out the silicone valve for that very reason. You would have to squeeze until the pressure overcame the resistance of the silicone valve then the ketchup would squirt out at high velocity. It was nearly impossible to get exactly the amount you wanted. With the valve removed it only takes a gentle squeeze.
- ImHereToVote 3y agoThat 3D scan WebGL viewer is sooooo good.
- ImHereToVote 3y agoIt's Three.JS r152. It doesn't look like it even has an acceleration structure. That's just raw rendering of 3D textures.
- addandsubtract 3y agoDoesn't load in Firefox (macOS), though.
- ImHereToVote 3y agomaxOS hasn't supported floating point 3D textures for a long time. Perhaps they still don't.
- lucioperca 3y agoIs recycling really worthwhile and is burning such waste and using it to generate energy not more efficient?
- Culonavirus 3y agoLast time I looked this up, I found out that recycling being worth is is highly dependent on where you live and what laws and regulations apply there. Don't quote me on this, do your own research, but I think some of the "recycled" plastic just ends up being shipped overseas and then ends up in the ocean.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoMeh. Still plastic, it just piggybacks on the semi big lie of "recycling plastics works!" I guess they are trying. But still more of a "shuffling deck chairs as the Titanic sinks" than actually addressing a problem
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- midtake 3y agoAll my ketchup comes in glass
- Neil44 3y agoMy grandad worked for Heinz in the big 57 factory. When I was a student he used to get me loads of cans of food, all without labels, you had to just know the little codes stamped on top to know if it was sponge pudding or chicken soup. I don't think they stamp the codes in the metal any more.
- zcw100 3y agoI’m willing to bet this has nothing to do with recyclability and everything to do with less expensive manufacturing.
- maccard 3y agoIt can be both.
- bayindirh 3y agoI don't think so. There's a huge push for recycling in EU. Every recyclable item either says to be put in the correct recycle bin, or has information about reusing with concentrated refills or by repurposing. Maybe the same push is not present in the US, but creating a new cap for European market makes sense. Also using the better cap across the whole world to save costs makes sense again.
- GuB-42 3y agoI hope it is less expensive. Cost savings often benefit sustainability. You probably heard the "reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order" thing. The "reduce" part also reduces costs. Here it looks like there is one less part (the silicone ring), which I believe makes it cheaper to build, cuts on supplies (no more need for silicone), and improves recyclability, which is good for the image and maybe some regulations. I don't know how good it is at delivering ketchup, but if it is as good or better, then we all win. Granted, it is still disposable plastic, but I don't see why that design would be unsuitable for a reusable bottle. Exactly the kind of R&D I like.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago> I hope it is less expensive. So do the shareholders. Less cost == more profit.
- madeofpalk 3y agoYou say this as if it's a bad thing? I don't see the need to be pesemistic about this.
- whywhywhywhy 3y agoMaybe I'm alone in this but I always found the silicone cap design choice to be particularly disgusting and unappetizing. Having your sauce fired to the plate at high velocity thin stream with a gross noise just isn't what I want when I'm about to eat. Doesn't take much imagination to think what it resembles in nature when you look at it. Think I only used one of these bottles once when they were introduced what 15-20 years ago? Then I've taken the entire lid off every single time since because of how unappetizing it is. Always go with the glass bottles too if I can for the same reason.
- blueflow 3y agoSustainability talk being about ketchup caps while rich people fly to climate conferences in their yachts. Weird world.
- bamboozled 3y agoDon't forget to stop eating meat, while we heavily subsidize the resources industry and frack the land.
- mc32 3y agoCertain senators flying in private planes too!
- abdusco 3y ago> fly to climate conferences in their yachts. Weird world. Yachts that fly. Weird world, indeed :)
- blueflow 3y agoIts a reference to this meme format: https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/11ayxqc/me_irl/ https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/11ayxqc/me_irl/
- lifestyleguru 3y agoIt's missing a Porsche hanging below on ropes. Someone fix the meme.
- pjc50 3y ago"We can't do everything, therefore we should do nothing". This kind of thing is just content-free dismissal.
- lifestyleguru 3y agoGiven the budget, resources, and executive power I have - yup - nothing is exactly I can do.
- dontupvoteme 3y agoNever knew i needed a CT scanner. Wonder how much this costs? Medically speaking they're pretty damn cheap (compared to other modalities anyway)
- viasfo 3y agoThe company where that article is hosted sells the CT scanners used to create that scan. Starting at $75,000/year (industrial CT is much less expensive than medical)
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoReduce, reuse, recycle. If they really want to make an impact, they should sell ketchup in bulk at grocery stores, with us bringing in our own reusable ketchup bottle to refill. Disposable packaging creates unnecessary waste.
- anticensor 3y agoOK, but how would one keep the texture of the ketchup from thickening up during the day?
- cm2012 3y agoI just got this new cap recently (before reading this article) and it snapped in half when I first opened it. So not too promising lol
- fedeb95 3y agoyou know what could be sustainable? A bring-your-own bottle policy in stores. Deliver big dispensers to stores, and let people refill. All the rest is a very marginal reduction unlikely to have an effect in the long run. In a complex environment, where we can't make predictions, is better to be cautious.
- throwaway143829 3y agoStores don't have the space for that currently. Though it may be possible to redesign them in such a way that they do.
- sp332 3y agoA lot of stores have a "bulk food" section where you can get nuts or granola this way. It takes less space than the same amount of product in individual packages.
- lupire 3y agoBottle exchange is better than that. People don't want people bringing filthy containers into the store.
- tristan957 3y agoThe term I have heard used is Refillery. I have seen small businesses do this for soaps, shampoos, and conditioners at farmers markets. Check your local area!
- emilfihlman 3y agoAs a side note regarding bottle caps, the new EU bottle cap regulation that requires soda bottle and milk carton etc caps to be captive is absolutely idiotic, and just causes more problems.
- coryfklein 3y agoIn the third paragraph: > The new cap appears as a uniform color in Voyager’s range map... compare it to the old cap, whose silicone valve is denser than the surrounding plastic. Author: you must be completely blind. Both photos show a wide gradient of colors including blue, green, yellow, and deep orange! Why does orange in the left photo mean "it is silicone" but orange on the right means "it is PP"?
- s3p 3y agoI agree with what you're saying, but the general statement by the author seems to hold up. They don't appear to be the exact same shade of orange, as the silicone tip is a bright, deep orange, and the cap on the right only has little mixtures of orange in the overall shape.
- swashboon 3y agoIn the right image the dark orange is the bottle which is a separate (uniform) piece.
- adrianmonk 3y agoI believe both photos must show the cap while screwed onto the bottle. In the photo of the new cap, the orange stuff is the bottle. The picture shows the screw threads of the bottle opening meeting the threads of the cap. And you can see some asymmetry where the part on the left side of the bottle opening is vertically lower than the part on the right side, which is consistent with the thread being a spiral shape.
- jrochkind1 3y ago> Currently only about 3% of PP products are being recycled in the United States, but it is becoming more widely accepted So now the relatively small amount of mass in the cap is just as recyclable as the bottle itself -- neither are actually going to be recycled. There's nothing to see here but marketing. And a an interesting engineering puzzle solved, sure. "How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled" https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...
- ddejohn 3y agoBased on the title, I had originally assumed clicking on this thread that it would be about their glass bottles with the white metal caps.
- whycome 3y agoAnd those caps were probably fully recyclable. I expected to at least see photos of the cap and the one it's replacing.
- numpad0 3y agoI think this is about newer upside down bottles, the one that has a giant flip open cap with a gasket that don't open until the bottle is squeezed hard enough.
- audunw 3y agoBut PP is one of the plastics that CAN be recycled, and IS recycled, often at a much higher rate than in the US. One of the barriers of effectively recycling PP is the mixing of materials in packaging. I know some brands in my country switched labels to make sure the bottle was uniform and recognises by recycling machines as PP. So what Heinz is doing here is actually meaningful. The other problem USA has is poor education and lack of well separated waste streams. I’ve personally experienced ridiculous “wishcycling” from my extended family in the US where they just throw whatever they want to feel good about throwing away in the recycling bin without looking up what should go in there. Not to mention that the idea of a “recycling” bin is ridiculous to start with. You need one bin for each type of material. The ideal solution is the bottle recycling machines (like Tomra) found in Northern Europe, that only accepts aluminium and plastic cans/bottles, which goes right back to making new cans/bottles. Well, the plastic bottle part is work in progress, but there are bottles made from 100% recycled materials now, and the key to that is to have a clean well-separated stream of recycled materials coming in. Funny story: I saw a documentary from a local advanced recycling centre, where they mentioned that the bales of plastic that actually went to be reused in new products/bottles smelled really nice. Because a big portion of them was PP shampoo bottles.
- FpUser 3y agoMe - grabbing a wallet and rushing to a nearest grocery store. Yeah right ...
- jimmar 3y agoReally smart move by Heinz--if only for the marketing and brand awareness alone. I doubt the environment outcomes will be significant, but the Heinz brand name has shown up in my feeds quite a bit in the past 24 hours because of this change.
- itslennysfault 3y agoAll this work and plastic recycling still is a horrible and toxic practice. Here is an innovation Heinz can work on... go back to glass bottles. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/05/plastics-recycling-failure-microplastics-pollution-study/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/05/plastics-rec...
- sumtechguy 3y agoand metal caps...
- Tokkemon 3y agoEveryone hates those.
- colordrops 3y agoWho is everyone? I prefer a glass jar with a spoon. Even if the majority of people hate it, so what. They hate turning off lights and monitoring electricity usage and driving under the speed limit and wiping their ass.
- specialist 3y agoMaybe ceramics could provide a third choice. Traditional clay (earthen) "bhar" cups are pretty awesome. Sanitary (kiln fired), no glazes, durable, water proof, single use, non-toxic, etc. When you're done sipping your chai, just smash your bhar cup on the ground. It simply becomes earth again. Surely we can come up with some spiffy new modern variations. All it'd take is investment and policy. -- For the eeyores: Startups are now developing and deploying out carbon-free cement and carbon-free steel. All it took was investment, cheap energy, and policy. -- Aside: Since the early '90s, Howard Schultz (Starbucks) has promised us an eco-friendly coffee cup. Any day now, right? I'm so tired of waiting.
- s0rce 3y agoA glass bottle/jar with a metal cap is far superior if the goal was sustainability. Maybe the user experience isn't as desirable but more plastic that isn't going to get recycled doesn't' seem great...
- callalex 3y agoHow is packaging that weighs hundreds of times as much, requiring burning hundreds of times as much fuel to transport, more sustainable?
- s0rce 3y agoGood point, might be bad for certain transport modes, I was mostly trying to reduce the impact of single use packaging.
- ricardobeat 3y agoLocal manufacturing + renewable energy for transportation.
- snypher 3y agoYou can refill the jars at the nearest railroad tank car, they don't have to go all the way back to the tomato factory.
- cschneid 3y ago$1.2 million seems so low of a dollar amount, for an multi year effort. Isn't that just like... 1 engineer's salary? $150k/year, 1.5x multiplier to account for benefits and other expenses of hiring somebody.
- vuln 3y agoOnce we couldn’t ship trash to China, American recycling became cost prohibitive.
- zeroCalories 3y agoThere is no sustainable or recyclable. If you want to reduce pollution and trash, you should reduce consumption first. Heinz and grocery store could move to allowing users to re-fill bottles, but instead they waste our time on stuff like this.
- Tokkemon 3y agoAnd how would that work in a sanitary and efficient way?
- zeroCalories 3y agoYou ever been to a fast food place in the U.S? They have ketchup dispensers.
- cobertos 3y agoAnd yet my mustard bottle uses a simple hole and I'm frustrated by the current ketchup silicone cap requiring too much pressure and over dispensing on the initial squeeze. So, worse! Is it really necessary to do all this engineering for this??
- lefixx 3y agoCalling a polypropylene cap sustainable is a joke, right?
- eelcow 3y agoGreat to see some progress, I'm still quite disappointed with the innovation and speed of adoption of new sustainable materials.
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoWe had sustainable caps. They were made from metal. The bottle was made from glass. Both are infinitely recyclable. Instead, lets destroy the world :)
- stevage 3y agoIf it was actually made from recycled plastic, that would be something. In my area they recycle #5 but not something as small as a bottle cap.
- colordrops 3y agoJust serve ketchup out of glass jars with spoons.
- fennecbutt 3y agoWho gives a damn, Heinz? Just another corporation. I want our governments to force a single type of robust, completely reusable and recyclable packaging for each major type of product. At a supermarket, if buying meat, it comes in a sturdy reusable plastic container that we pay a deposit on. The next time you shop you bring them back for them to be cleaned/reused and you get your deposit back (or use the credit for cleaned containers for the current shopping trip). Every bottle of any kind of sauce should be the exact same. Every packaging for every product should be standardised and exactly the same. Glass door or open refrigerators should be banned, open hot areas should be banned. This'll never happen, but I'm so disappointed with every single shopping trip I make, walking past open hot areas with rotisserie chickens RIGHT NEXT TO open fucking fridges, all filled with products in their own unique multi-plastic-cardboard printed colour bomb packaging. It's just so despicable that we don't care about this for some reason? Environmentalism has become a sad joke because we're gonna kill this planet, no doubt about it. :/