8 ms·

I often see "recycled" or similar as a signal for more expensive. My favorite was when I saw a jam that touted "upcycled" strawberries. When I looked into it,

• snowfarthing 2y ago
  I find this particular notion to be rather weird. I cannot see how it's a "waste" if something's fed to animals instead of humans!
  • snailmailstare 2y ago
    It is a horrible waste to produce any strawberries from an environmental perspective compared to the least sensitive feed crops so feeding them to animals is more of a better than nothing while getting someone out of the market for the grades of strawberries that drive production is not. But any mediocre quality strawberry jam probably does that.
  • HPsquared 2y ago
    Opportunity cost, mostly.
  • latexr 2y ago
    Despite the quotes, the person you’re replying to didn’t use the word “waste” nor have they claimed using that fruit to feed animals would be bad. In short, they didn’t make the argument you’re against. However, in the interest of good faith discussion, I’ll offer a rebuttal to the argument you are making. The logic applies when (and this is very important) that food goes to farm animals which will be slaughtered of humans to eat. “Waste” isn’t really the right word, more like “inefficient”, in the sense that the amount of food which takes for an animal to mature is orders of magnitude greater than what you take from it. In other words, you could feed significantly more people if they ate what you’re feeding the animal. When you couple that with the environmental impact of raising animals as food, including deforestation and land use, which in turn affects us as well, it becomes a major issue.
    • lupire 2y ago
      Inefficiency is waste
      • latexr 2y ago
        Potato potáto, that’s not what matters. The whole point of the post was to engage in good faith and see past the exact wording to focus on the argument. Obsessing about the definition is counter productive and an exercise in bad faith and derailing the conversation. That is a waste.
• yoavm 2y ago
  Sometimes it's a marketing stunt, but often recycling is more expensive. I mean, recycling a plastic bag is probably more expensive than making one. The unfortunate reality of our financial system is that it often rewards people for doing the wrong thing.
  • bko 2y ago
    If recycling is more expensive, isn't recycling the wrong thing? The price isn't some random number attached to an activity. It captures the various costs associated with it and is helpful in directing behaviors for this very reason. Recycling is more expensive, it likely means that there are associated costs (e.g. transportation, sorting, cleaning, processing, etc) that make it less economical than just throwing it in a landfill. And all these additional costs likely make it the "wrong" decision since they likely contribute to carbon emissions or otherwise wasteful use of the earth's resources
    • adrianN 2y ago
      The price rarely captures all the costs.
    • davidodio 2y ago
      “Costs” often ignore externalities like environmental damage and inequality. Landfilling or dumping plastic may be cheaper now, but it shifts the true cost — centuries of pollution —onto vulnerable communities today. There is a reason the clothing dumps are in Ghana and Chile, rather than wealthier nations like the US or Germany. If the price to companies profiting from plastics included exteralities I could possibly agree with you but as it stands these costs are normally paid by disadvantaged individuals or marginalized ecosystems.
      • murderfs 2y ago
        The reason the clothing dumps exist is greenwashing. If we weren't pretending that reusing clothing is meaningful to the environment, we'd just burn the clothing locally.
• jdietrich 2y ago
  >When I looked into it, it basically meant that it was made from beat up ugly strawberries That's true for basically all processed food that contains fruit or vegetables, for obvious economic reasons. The stuff that looks good goes to the supermarkets who care very much about shelf appeal, the rest goes to the processors who absolutely don't.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • nosioptar 2y ago
    Stuff like Pringles are made from the nastiest rotting potatoes in the planet. It's been 20 years since the last time I set foot in a potato plant, I can still smell it.
    • TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Good. That means they're reducing food waste. A big problem with the food market is that people shop with their eyes, which leads to stupid amount of waste on fruit&vegetables section, as people prefer to go to another store than to buy veggies that look anything less than perfect.
      • osrec 2y ago
        In a lot of cases, that's how it works in nature too though. Visual appeal on the tree/bush is a big part of what attracts an animal to a fruit. It's just how we're built.
        • makapuf 2y ago
          I find dangerous red berries and colored frogs very attractive.
        • TeMPOraL 2y ago
          Right, but animals aren't as picky as humans - they'll eat anything that isn't rotten (and then some animals actually prefer rotten stuff). Meanwhile people will avoid buying veggies that look off even if there's no risk to health or taste involved. I suppose this is because most animals in the wild are always couple hours away from starvation and just can't afford being picky eaters.
• userbinator 2y ago
  I often see "recycled" or similar as a signal for more expensive. That's just because of this new wave of eco-virtue-signaling that's become popular in the past few years. Before that, recycled meant lower quality and cheaper. See also: "vegan butter" or "plant-based butter" instead of "hydrogenated vegetable oil".
  • aziaziazi 2y ago
    While I get your point, some new plants butters don’t contained hydrogenated oils. See my favorite brand, Flora: https://www.flora.com/en-us/floraplant/our-products/salted-plant-butter https://www.flora.com/en-us/floraplant/our-products/salted-p...