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We've heard the "biodegradable" greenwashing scam of plastic technology advances over and over again. Maybe we shouldn't be seeking continued use of toxic petro

We've heard the "biodegradable" greenwashing scam of plastic technology advances over and over again. Maybe we shouldn't be seeking continued use of toxic petrochemical processes and should instead change our storage and packaging materials to be less hazardous and more reusable, because many other options already exist.

1minusp 2y ago
This. There seems to be one of these announcements every so often, and i havent seen any of them used at scale, or making any kind of dent in the status quo.
InDubioProRubio 2y ago
That will be 5 $ more per butterstick, for the logistics of reusable porcelain butter packages.. which have to be collected, washed and shipped. Which makes it a rich people feel good status-symbol luxury, sadly.
- vhcr 2y ago
  Or you know, supermarkets would purchase 50kg blocks of butter and fraction it, clients would then be responsible for bringing their own reusable containers.
  - layer8 2y ago
    You’d still have to pay the employee who’d be responsible for cutting and weighing the butter for each customer, and taking payment for the butter (or however else that would work). Or build a machine that does it. Not sure how the cost for that would work out, or the machine’s ecological footprint in comparison.
    - jdietrich 2y ago
      Plus all of the food hygiene and logistical implications of handling products in bulk, multiplied by the 30,000 different products in a typical supermarket. I don't know about the US, but in my country butter is packaged in waxed paper, which is fully biodegradable.
      - Loughla 2y ago
        >multiplied by the 30,000 different products in a typical supermarket It's almost like we're going to have to reduce our consumption or something. Maybe we don't need 200 different kinds of cereal and 300 different kinds of coffee available every single day.
        Tagbert 2y ago
        And due to the labor, it can only handle a low volume of goods with a high markup. When I go there, you end up waiting in line to be helped by the one or two people working that counter. Meanwhile, the cheaper, prepackaged foods can be picked up as needed.
      - layer8 2y ago
        It wouldn’t be that different from how a lot of cheese is being handled where I live. Except they currently put the cuts into plastic wrappings (which are “sealed” by the price sticker) instead of customer-provided containers. On the other hand, for fruits we already do use nets brought by the customer, and the weighing happens at the checkout.
        riffraff 2y ago
        In my hometown in Italy you can ask to put your cheese or cold cuts from the counter in a container you provide. I'm not sure this ends up as a net positive compared to the paper with plastic lining they provide tho, since you have to wash the container at some point.
        antisthenes 2y ago
        > I'm not sure this ends up as a net positive compared to the paper with plastic lining they provide tho, since you have to wash the container at some point. Unlike different kinds of plastic, water is 100% recyclable and doesn't come from nasty petrochemicals in the first place.
        2y ago
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      My local supermarket chains already do that. It's called the Deli Counter. The cost is not a big deal.
  - gwbas1c 2y ago
    No one will actually do that, except the few weirdos who think that it's a good idea. Remember: "Reusable" containers also have an environmental cost. Each container will be used, on average, X times. Then it will break, or otherwise end its useful life, and end up in a landfill too. Don't assume that a "reusable" container is better for the environment: My house is full of free, pristine, reusable water bottles that are gifts, souvenirs, ect. My kids go through about 2 reusable water bottles a year, each.
    - wholinator2 2y ago
      I mean, of course it's not perfect. But isn't 2 water bottles in a land fill orders of magnitude better than 300? Isn't the reduction of bulk trash the point? Why would the fact that a glass container can break make it not still a better alternative to 50 plastic ones?
      - gwbas1c 2y ago
        > But isn't 2 water bottles in a land fill orders of magnitude better than 300? I think you're making a lot more assumptions than you think: For example, glass vs glass: My single-use glass container may be recyclable, but the fancy glass reusable one isn't. Aluminum: Aluminum cans are highly recyclable. Is your metal reusable water bottle recyclable? Plastic: Ooooh, I won't go there.
    - kaikai 2y ago
      I’ve had the same steel water bottle for over 10 years. Just because you don’t reuse things well doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
      - syndicatedjelly 2y ago
        What were the inputs like to manufacture the steel container?
        trollbridge 2y ago
        Probably less than 3.650 plastic bottles, assuming he drinks one per day.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Butter is, perhaps, a bit sticky for that, but my local co-op has various bulk grains and flour and beans and such that customers can bring their own containers for.
- riffraff 2y ago
  Not arguing the general point, for which I agree, but isn't butter commonly sold in aluminum foil wrappers?
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  Butter used to be packaged in wax paper, which was (then) biodegradable. The plastic packaging is about branding and shipping, not cost.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    It still is. Well maybe not at Whole Foods, I've never been in one, but at Walmart it's four wax-paper wrapped sticks in a cardboard box.
    - kaikai 2y ago
      Do you know that it’s waxed paper, and not plasticized paper? Genuine question, since I imagine “wax” paper is either plasticized or using petroleum-based waxes.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  Your sticks of butter come wrapped in plastic? I don't think I've ever seen anything other than wax paper or foil, with only tubs of butter, rather than sticks, in plastic.
  - njtransit 2y ago
    Up until earlier this year, many "grease proof" papers (e.g. butter wrappers) were PFAS.
    - Aloisius 2y ago
      PFAS aren't plastics. And removing them clearly didn't increase the price of sticks of butter by $5.
      - atombender 2y ago
        A lot of plastic containers use fluorine-treated plastic [1], resulting in the creation of PFAS. The fluorine is used to strengthen the plastic and make it less permeable. > Since EPA released its investigation, we have learned the disturbing fact that the fluorination of plastic is commonly used to treat hundreds of millions of polyethylene and polypropylene containers each year ranging from packaged food and consumer products that individuals buy to larger containers used by retailers such as restaurants to even larger drums used by manufacturers to store and transport fluids. [1] https://blogs.edf.org/health/2021/07/07/beyond-paper-pfas/ https://blogs.edf.org/health/2021/07/07/beyond-paper-pfas/
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    A lot of "butter" spreads are sold in plastic tubs.
StableAlkyne 2y ago
It's very easy to say "why don't we just stop using toxic petrochemicals," but very hard to do in practice. For a sustainability advancement to be considered a success, it has to actually replace something. To replace something, it: - has to be affordable, or people will refuse to buy it. The general public cares more for its wallet than the environment. - has to be at least as performant as what it's replacing, or people won't want to change. The general public is not going to buy an inferior product in the name of sustainability. - has to be more environmentally friendly than what preceeded it, or it has no benefit. If you can find a more environmentally friendly material that is able to replace plastic, achieve its physical properties, at the same cost, then patent it and you will be very wealthy. And will have outplayed the billions (probably a lowball) being dumped into this by governments, universities, and private companies around the world. Also, the reason most of these articles hype their own work up is because the name of the game in academia is grant money. If a funding agency doesn't think your work is impactful, they'll give it to someone who is. That's why articles rarely describe their incremental work as just being incremental.
- hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
  You seem to believe plastic containers are used due to being a more affordable and technically superior solution. That’s a common mistake. The true reason it’s so cheap and available, is subsidies. $7 trillion as of 2023, to be exact. Without subsidies, using a non-renewable, expensive to harvest resource, to produce single-use plastic would be an absolutely irrational decision. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel-subsidies-surged-to-record-7-trillion https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...
  - incrudible 2y ago
    This bogus number comes from putting a value on the supposed environmental cost, but that is not what subsidy means in the economic sense. We already established that if we somehow could globally settle on a price for externalities, alternatives would be competitive, but they would still be intrinsically more expensive.
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numpad0 2y ago
Toxic stuffs are always technologically superior. Always. Fluoride etched Indium-Gallium-Arsenide-Phosphide make great solar cells. Iron-Aluminum-Gold alloy, not so much, if it worked at all. Human life expectancy literally doubled as we switched from those "less hazardous and more reusable" options to disposable plastics. What justification do you have to go back to that? No one has one. We need sustainable plastics production. Maybe from agricultural waste or something. Not a transition to a "Glass-and-steel Age". There's no way around that.
- ninalanyon 2y ago
  > Human life expectancy literally doubled as we switched from those "less hazardous and more reusable" options to disposable plastics. Really? And are the two things causally connected in the way you imply? In that period infant mortality was falling which has a dramatic effect on mean life expectancy but is probably not all that greatly affected by disposable plastics. Also life expectancy in Norway was 72.8 years in 1950-1955. When, if ever, was it only 36.4 years? I'm quite that plastic packaging was rare or non-existent in Norway and the rest of Europe in the early 1950s and life expectancy is certainly not 145.6 years now that it is ubiquitous.

1minusp 2y ago

This. There seems to be one of these announcements every so often, and i havent seen any of them used at scale, or making any kind of dent in the status quo.

InDubioProRubio 2y ago

That will be 5 $ more per butterstick, for the logistics of reusable porcelain butter packages.. which have to be collected, washed and shipped. Which makes it a rich people feel good status-symbol luxury, sadly.

vhcr 2y ago
Or you know, supermarkets would purchase 50kg blocks of butter and fraction it, clients would then be responsible for bringing their own reusable containers.
- layer8 2y ago
  You’d still have to pay the employee who’d be responsible for cutting and weighing the butter for each customer, and taking payment for the butter (or however else that would work). Or build a machine that does it. Not sure how the cost for that would work out, or the machine’s ecological footprint in comparison.
  - jdietrich 2y ago
    Plus all of the food hygiene and logistical implications of handling products in bulk, multiplied by the 30,000 different products in a typical supermarket. I don't know about the US, but in my country butter is packaged in waxed paper, which is fully biodegradable.
    - Loughla 2y ago
      >multiplied by the 30,000 different products in a typical supermarket It's almost like we're going to have to reduce our consumption or something. Maybe we don't need 200 different kinds of cereal and 300 different kinds of coffee available every single day.
      - Tagbert 2y ago
        And due to the labor, it can only handle a low volume of goods with a high markup. When I go there, you end up waiting in line to be helped by the one or two people working that counter. Meanwhile, the cheaper, prepackaged foods can be picked up as needed.
    - layer8 2y ago
      It wouldn’t be that different from how a lot of cheese is being handled where I live. Except they currently put the cuts into plastic wrappings (which are “sealed” by the price sticker) instead of customer-provided containers. On the other hand, for fruits we already do use nets brought by the customer, and the weighing happens at the checkout.
      - riffraff 2y ago
        In my hometown in Italy you can ask to put your cheese or cold cuts from the counter in a container you provide. I'm not sure this ends up as a net positive compared to the paper with plastic lining they provide tho, since you have to wash the container at some point.
        antisthenes 2y ago
        > I'm not sure this ends up as a net positive compared to the paper with plastic lining they provide tho, since you have to wash the container at some point. Unlike different kinds of plastic, water is 100% recyclable and doesn't come from nasty petrochemicals in the first place.
        2y ago
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    My local supermarket chains already do that. It's called the Deli Counter. The cost is not a big deal.
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  No one will actually do that, except the few weirdos who think that it's a good idea. Remember: "Reusable" containers also have an environmental cost. Each container will be used, on average, X times. Then it will break, or otherwise end its useful life, and end up in a landfill too. Don't assume that a "reusable" container is better for the environment: My house is full of free, pristine, reusable water bottles that are gifts, souvenirs, ect. My kids go through about 2 reusable water bottles a year, each.
  - wholinator2 2y ago
    I mean, of course it's not perfect. But isn't 2 water bottles in a land fill orders of magnitude better than 300? Isn't the reduction of bulk trash the point? Why would the fact that a glass container can break make it not still a better alternative to 50 plastic ones?
    - gwbas1c 2y ago
      > But isn't 2 water bottles in a land fill orders of magnitude better than 300? I think you're making a lot more assumptions than you think: For example, glass vs glass: My single-use glass container may be recyclable, but the fancy glass reusable one isn't. Aluminum: Aluminum cans are highly recyclable. Is your metal reusable water bottle recyclable? Plastic: Ooooh, I won't go there.
  - kaikai 2y ago
    I’ve had the same steel water bottle for over 10 years. Just because you don’t reuse things well doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
    - syndicatedjelly 2y ago
      What were the inputs like to manufacture the steel container?
      - trollbridge 2y ago
        Probably less than 3.650 plastic bottles, assuming he drinks one per day.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Butter is, perhaps, a bit sticky for that, but my local co-op has various bulk grains and flour and beans and such that customers can bring their own containers for.
riffraff 2y ago
Not arguing the general point, for which I agree, but isn't butter commonly sold in aluminum foil wrappers?
AlotOfReading 2y ago
Butter used to be packaged in wax paper, which was (then) biodegradable. The plastic packaging is about branding and shipping, not cost.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  It still is. Well maybe not at Whole Foods, I've never been in one, but at Walmart it's four wax-paper wrapped sticks in a cardboard box.
  - kaikai 2y ago
    Do you know that it’s waxed paper, and not plasticized paper? Genuine question, since I imagine “wax” paper is either plasticized or using petroleum-based waxes.
Aloisius 2y ago
Your sticks of butter come wrapped in plastic? I don't think I've ever seen anything other than wax paper or foil, with only tubs of butter, rather than sticks, in plastic.
- njtransit 2y ago
  Up until earlier this year, many "grease proof" papers (e.g. butter wrappers) were PFAS.
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    PFAS aren't plastics. And removing them clearly didn't increase the price of sticks of butter by $5.
    - atombender 2y ago
      A lot of plastic containers use fluorine-treated plastic [1], resulting in the creation of PFAS. The fluorine is used to strengthen the plastic and make it less permeable. > Since EPA released its investigation, we have learned the disturbing fact that the fluorination of plastic is commonly used to treat hundreds of millions of polyethylene and polypropylene containers each year ranging from packaged food and consumer products that individuals buy to larger containers used by retailers such as restaurants to even larger drums used by manufacturers to store and transport fluids. [1] https://blogs.edf.org/health/2021/07/07/beyond-paper-pfas/ https://blogs.edf.org/health/2021/07/07/beyond-paper-pfas/
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  A lot of "butter" spreads are sold in plastic tubs.

StableAlkyne 2y ago

It's very easy to say "why don't we just stop using toxic petrochemicals," but very hard to do in practice. For a sustainability advancement to be considered a success, it has to actually replace something. To replace something, it: - has to be affordable, or people will refuse to buy it. The general public cares more for its wallet than the environment. - has to be at least as performant as what it's replacing, or people won't want to change. The general public is not going to buy an inferior product in the name of sustainability. - has to be more environmentally friendly than what preceeded it, or it has no benefit. If you can find a more environmentally friendly material that is able to replace plastic, achieve its physical properties, at the same cost, then patent it and you will be very wealthy. And will have outplayed the billions (probably a lowball) being dumped into this by governments, universities, and private companies around the world. Also, the reason most of these articles hype their own work up is because the name of the game in academia is grant money. If a funding agency doesn't think your work is impactful, they'll give it to someone who is. That's why articles rarely describe their incremental work as just being incremental.

hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
You seem to believe plastic containers are used due to being a more affordable and technically superior solution. That’s a common mistake. The true reason it’s so cheap and available, is subsidies. $7 trillion as of 2023, to be exact. Without subsidies, using a non-renewable, expensive to harvest resource, to produce single-use plastic would be an absolutely irrational decision. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel-subsidies-surged-to-record-7-trillion https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/08/24/fossil-fuel...
- incrudible 2y ago
  This bogus number comes from putting a value on the supposed environmental cost, but that is not what subsidy means in the economic sense. We already established that if we somehow could globally settle on a price for externalities, alternatives would be competitive, but they would still be intrinsically more expensive.

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numpad0 2y ago

Toxic stuffs are always technologically superior. Always. Fluoride etched Indium-Gallium-Arsenide-Phosphide make great solar cells. Iron-Aluminum-Gold alloy, not so much, if it worked at all. Human life expectancy literally doubled as we switched from those "less hazardous and more reusable" options to disposable plastics. What justification do you have to go back to that? No one has one. We need sustainable plastics production. Maybe from agricultural waste or something. Not a transition to a "Glass-and-steel Age". There's no way around that.

ninalanyon 2y ago
> Human life expectancy literally doubled as we switched from those "less hazardous and more reusable" options to disposable plastics. Really? And are the two things causally connected in the way you imply? In that period infant mortality was falling which has a dramatic effect on mean life expectancy but is probably not all that greatly affected by disposable plastics. Also life expectancy in Norway was 72.8 years in 1950-1955. When, if ever, was it only 36.4 years? I'm quite that plastic packaging was rare or non-existent in Norway and the rest of Europe in the early 1950s and life expectancy is certainly not 145.6 years now that it is ubiquitous.