What is Digg?40 Comments
- inactive, on 07/21/2008, -0/+35Just more trash and oil consumption we don't need.
- inactive, on 07/21/2008, -1/+30"The market is broken down into seven major types of plastic including PET, HDPE, polystyrene, polypropylene, LDPE, polycarbonate, SBCs, PVC and other. PET is the dominant resin in the market, reaching over 7 billion pounds in 2007." -This Market is going to be massive as it takes off. Although the current movement is towards renewable energy, the market for petroleum based plastics will continue to grow until alternatives can be found.
- AmyVernon, on 07/22/2008, -0/+21the thing about these types of containers, though, is that they're actually reusable. i find most takeout now is in reusable plastic containers rather than tins or some other completely disposable product. it's actually more earth-friendly that way. we never buy plastic containers anymore; i just clean the takeout containers and reuse them
- Jaxtr, on 07/21/2008, -0/+19This is some interesting news. It's not like a lot of the stories that seem to proliferate on Digg. I'm surprised to hear that the bulk food thing may be replaced by this "shrinking" trend.
- inactive, on 07/22/2008, -1/+12I wonder how this movement will go green, there has to be a way
- frascellyboy273, on 07/22/2008, -0/+7everything in america is overpackaged and overdone, i opened a box of hp toner the other day only to find it buried beneath like 7 layers of plastic, sheesh, the box was like twice as big as it needed to be too
- inactive, on 07/22/2008, -1/+8That's great to hear and I encourage you to keep doing it. The problem is that the majority of people just don't care, they don't realise the situation and the problem that's facing them, thus, more and smaller containers = more trash.
The 2nd problem is that food is always more expensive is smaller package, I mean, overall, compared to bulk-sized. - dragongrrl, on 07/22/2008, -0/+6
it's a single-serving, portable, open-and-eat world
in a stressful, busy world, people don't have time (or don't take the time) to cook. they want stuff prepared already. and they don't seem to want leftovers.
poor landfills. what a legacy we're leaving behind just because we're busy/lazy. i'm as guilty as anyone else. - TheMachine1, on 07/22/2008, -1/+7Lactic acid a fermentation product can be polymerised into a bio-plastic. Polylactate is biodegradable in a compost pile.
Its pointless to point out the insanity of growing grain with petrochemicals, oil for tractors, transport it to feed livestock with low conversion efficiency to make meat dishes to pack in a petrol based container, freeze it with more fossil fuels and ship it across the country so you can drive to walmart in your SUV to get it. When merely planting some beans in your yard would be more practical. - inactive, on 07/22/2008, -0/+5Hybrid Forklifts are in the making.
- Wargalas, on 07/22/2008, -0/+5There are forklifts now that run on compressed air.
- Blademan88, on 07/22/2008, -0/+4yet i bet you still dont have beans in your backyard...
- Obelia, on 07/22/2008, -0/+4There's some good news in here, if they're moving towards more PET in the UK. Most councils will recycle that, whereas polypropylene (recycling number 5) usually has to go straight to landfill in a lot of places.
Personally I try to avoid buying things in containers I can't recycle. - forcedfx, on 07/22/2008, -0/+4I hear that. All of our printers are HP and it's amazing how much wasted packaging there is for the toner. We recycle the cardboard and the toners cartridges but the rest is plastic wrapping and bubble wrap.
- Charlotte_Web, on 07/22/2008, -0/+3I've been noticing at the grocery store lately a trend along similar lines. Manufacturers are starting to come out with smaller volume containers to replace the products you've been buying at the same price points. In other words, you're paying the same price and getting less.
Tropicana is redesigning their orange juice containers, and promoting it as more convenient packaging. Breyers reduced the size of their ice cream by a full 25%! - MRAS, on 07/22/2008, -0/+3The land fills will just turn in to adventure playgrounds for future generations /j
- Rotzooi, on 07/22/2008, -1/+4Europe has this problem as well. Their solution is actually an interesting combination of American free-market capitalism and government taxation. Several countries have started to implement a 'packaging tax' on products. The more it will cost to get rid of the packaging (non-recyclable and polluting vs biodegradable and reusable), the higher the tax on it will be.
This stimulates the producers to find 'green' solutions, will lead to decreased demand for landfills and will lead to *lower* taxes in the long term - as cities have less trash to pick up, and counties have less trash to incinerate. - beauley, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2With all of the unknowns in both our agricultural and post harvested food processing before we make the final purchase at the supermarket, sometimes the foods we do eat, are totally different than those that we are able to grow in our own back yard, or are able to buy from U.S.D.A. organically certified farms.
http://www.healthmad.com/Nutrition/Organically-Gro ...
Organically Grown Foods: Our Only Hope - bipolarruledout, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2I would really like to see packaging downsized instead. Less cardboard, less plastic. It seems that they could make much of it a lot thinner and save money doing it. There must be some packaging designers who are up the challenge. This should be getting better, not worse. I'm not saying we need to go back to block lettering on a white background for generic products but I think things could be much more "green."
- inactive, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1Learn something new everyday...that's what I hope Digg can do for me :)
- mieprowan, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1Check out Ecoclam.com.
- Cancerkitty, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1This surprised me as well. I assumed the opposite would be true.
- diggydougie, on 07/22/2008, -1/+2This isn't news. It's obvious.
- DeFex, on 07/22/2008, -1/+2but how many containers do you need? this is coming just in time for many cities charging by the amount of garbage you throw out.
- beauley, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Our government here in the U.S. and most other nations of the world have been irradiating some of our foods increasingly from simple bacon since the mid 1950's. They say it saves the aggravation of food manufacturers lawsuits from the lessening of process contamination, but does it really work?
http://www.gomestic.com/Consumer-Information/Is-Fo ...
Is Food Irradiation Starving Us? - bipolarruledout, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Nah...it's just needed to retain all that "Genuine HP Quality" they packed in there.
- mtvkilledusall, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1When someone discovers a bean that tastes and feels like a goddamn steak I will eat all the beans you can ***** throw at me.
- CosmicJustice, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1When cities begin charging for trash collection by the pound you will see massive amounts of illegal dumping and litter. Bureaucrats never see the obvious unintended consequences of the silly regulations they come up with. In this case they make the ridiculous assumption that people will somehow magically produce less trash when in reality they will just dispose of a lot of their trash in really environmentally unfriendly ways.
- CosmicJustice, on 07/22/2008, -0/+1Do some research. Most of what you "recycle" ends up in a landfill.
- Thermador, on 07/22/2008, -1/+1Something tells me that the price won't be downsized.
- JHarrison23, on 11/30/2008, -0/+0Wow this is really obvious already.
http://www.Total-Cleanse.org - CedEx, on 07/22/2008, -0/+0Well, at Tim Horton's they had a soup combo where you eat the bowl after you drink the soup! Of course, the bowl was made of bread though.
- postmodern68, on 07/25/2008, -0/+0The grocery shrink ray is now institutionalized!
- babyloutattoo, on 07/22/2008, -1/+1I hope they start investing in some biodegradable plastics and more effecient recycling methods, or else the garbage heap the size of Texas growing outside San Francisco will become the garbage heap the size of China.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2 ... - inactive, on 07/22/2008, -3/+1***** communist taxes, we already pay enough and the last ***** thing we need is the government adding on more taxes.
- DesertTripper, on 07/22/2008, -4/+1What happened to the promise of edible tableware? Best solution (aside from bringing your own dinnerware to the fast-food outlet.)
Why does every frigging thing have to be disposable in the first place? 100 years ago, most stuff was reused, many things were produced locally, and we didn't have the trash and resource issues we do now.
Now, with every square centimeter of cities and suburban areas occupied by buildings, it's impossible to grow food locally. Furthermore, we have to use cars to do just about everything (in the old days, public transit was incredible compared to now.) And, everything has to be single-use and much of it is not recycled. Think about all the crap that now is landfilled - paper towels, diapers, plastic dinnerware. All those had (and still have) reusable alternatives.
When we eventually pollute, war, and global-warm ourselves to death, the survivors are going to have to adopt more primitive lifestyles. Even if there is no doomsday scenario, oil's gonna run out sooner or later (I like to think of it as the earth's storage battery), and no modern technology (except perhaps something nuclear - fission, or preferably FUSION) will replace the energy that oil produces on a daily basis. As plastics become harder to produce and more expensive, we'll be more picky about what gets stuffed in landfills (and maybe even mine old dumps for plastics once trashed.)
After our economy and infrastructure collapse and implode on themselves due to oil eventually running out, a more primitive lifestyle will be the norm.
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