Thoughts? I am currently trying to avoid using plastic packed drinks as much as possible due to it’s limited and finite recycle count

  • Octospider@lemmy.one
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    6 months ago

    Do you remember when Sun Chips changed their chip bag material to a more environmentally friendly compostable material? People lost their minds. Why? Because the bag crinkled a lot. All of the boring late night talk shows made fun of Sun Chips bags. So, they switched it back to the old bags.

    Moral of the story is that people don’t care if something is better for the environment if it inconveniences them now. If everything was in cans people would cry because they can’t close them or whatever. In fact, many items that were previously sold in cans are now plastic. Also, money… Cheaper to wrap water in plastic.

    You can still buy Coca-cola in glass bottles if you look hard enough. But they are pricey.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      6 months ago

      I got laughed at on other platforms by older generations for even suggesting the notion of mild inconvenience to make future generations lives easier.

      They don’t want us or them to have a better life, not even if it costs them nothing - but ESPECIALLY not if they have to do literally anything differently.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          6 months ago

          but so much worse when it comes from them. The “I got it, and I’ll never see what happens after I die so why do I care” attitude.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        6 months ago

        This is where I dispair about the future of walkable cities and trains. Can’t even get a section of the population to accept stopping to charge an EV every two hours for a whole 20 minutes during the road trip they take once a month, if that. How can we convince those people to bike or take trains?

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          6 months ago

          I’ve given up trying to convince them. They’re a vocal minority. Who I talk to and work with are the quieter ones. I’ve found on posts and comment sections there are people who are asking honest questions and are receptive. Scroll past the chaff and you’ll find them. We have a new train opening in our city and I spent a couple hours explaining to people where parking was available, how to ride it, how to pay for fare, etc. People were genuinely excited to hear that people like me are riding it! A lot of it is just anxiety of never taking transit before, and not knowing how to get started.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      6 months ago

      Do you remember when Sun Chips changed their chip bag material to a more environmentally friendly compostable material? People lost their minds. Why? Because the bag crinkled a lot.

      No… Because it crinkled at a high enough volume that you actually have to worry about hearing loss. People weren’t losing their mind for no reason.

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703960004575427150103293906

      It is louder than “the cockpit of my jet,” said J. Scot Heathman, an Air Force pilot, in a video probing the issue that he posted on his blog under the headline “Potato Chip Technology That Destroys Your Hearing.” Mr. Heathman tested the loudness using a RadioShack sound meter. He squeezed the bag and recorded a 95 decibel level.

      The Bag was louder than the ambient noise in a jet fighter cockpit in flight.

      • cobra89@beehaw.org
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        6 months ago

        They already do in the US, they sell beer like this. And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen water packaged like this too.

        • maniii@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Compared to barrels of crude oil, I am sure a SINGLE Block of Aluminium can be reused more than 1000X times with no environment damage.

          • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Oh I’m sure you are right, it’s the drink companies for whom the shipping expense outweighs the environmental damage, because capitalism.

            • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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              6 months ago

              Capitalism could solve this no problem if we just taxed externalities. Don’t even have to hit every level of the supply chain, just a big tax on fossil carbon removed from the ground, and maybe another tax where it gets transformed into plastic (a sort of externality-added tax).

              The market then decided what’s still worth making and what’s not, based on the total cost including the new taxes, weighed against how much people are willing to pay for the stuff.

            • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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              6 months ago

              I’m curious how much the environmental costs of shipping products in aluminum containers v. lighter plastic containers changes the equation.

              I also tend to think that an even better solution would be to have the consumer be the one with the container, and shipping the product in bulk, to be dispensed as a bulk item at a retail location. E.g., the packaging for shipping is the tank that the truck is towing, rather than a trailer full of individual use bottles.

    • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org
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      6 months ago

      We don’t have Sun Chips here so I’m not aware of this, but I’d be really curious to learn how much of that freakout was genuine and how much was engineered by entities with a vested interest in maintaining status quo.

    • Dandroid@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      At the time, I thought the Sun chips bag situation was hilarious. If I think back on it now, it’s really sad. Yes, the bag was significantly louder than the original bag. But I feel like we’re going to need to make some sacrifices as a society for the environment. And that seems like a really, really tiny sacrifice.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            6 months ago

            https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703960004575427150103293906

            It is louder than “the cockpit of my jet,” said J. Scot Heathman, an Air Force pilot, in a video probing the issue that he posted on his blog under the headline “Potato Chip Technology That Destroys Your Hearing.” Mr. Heathman tested the loudness using a RadioShack sound meter. He squeezed the bag and recorded a 95 decibel level.

            95 decibels is loud enough that you have to be concerned about hearing loss.

            https://www.ncoa.org/adviser/hearing-aids/decibel-levels/

            Prolonged exposure to sounds louder than 85 decibels can damage your hearing.
            Sixty decibels is equal to the sound of normal conversation, 90 decibels is closer to a lawn mower or hair dryer, and 120 decibels is more like a siren on an emergency vehicle.

            • Dandroid@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              From what distance away? Because I had them, and I promise they weren’t as loud from normal use distance than a jet engine. Maybe if your ear/microphone is basically touching the bag, but your ear isn’t normally that close. Plus, exposure time is pretty significant factor for hearing loss. Rolling up a chip bag once every couple of days when you have chips isn’t going to cause hearing loss.

              • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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                6 months ago

                Rolling up a chip bag once every couple of days when you have chips isn’t going to cause hearing loss.

                Go look up a video of these bags. Mere handling them is loud as shit. Not just when you roll them up when you’re done.

                NIOSH standards say that at 95db, you shouldn’t be exposed to more than ~45 minutes of it. Where-as an alternative “loud” bag was 77 db, which is longer than 50 hours of exposure (exceeds the rolling period and is thus “safe”).

                Noise exposure is additive during a rolling period. So just saying “once every few days” is bullshit. This isn’t something that happens or can be in a vacuum. It’s adding to the total exposure that you’re exposed to every day. On top of the rest of your day the 95db chip bag is a really stupid fucking way to damage your hearing. Because you chose to eat some chips while watching a movie one night.

                As someone with tinnitus… Fuck people who downplay hearing loss/damage. You should be doing everything possible to keep your exposure to anything above 80db to a minimum.

      • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        Not that it isn’t still junk food and horrible for you. HFCS might be a worse form of sugar, but in the end they’re still refined sugars. It’s worth noting that Mexico and the US have similar obesity rates. There are more factors than just beverages involved, but it is one.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Moral of the story is that people don’t care if something is better for the environment if it inconveniences them now

      Another way to put this is we all live in many different environments, including our clothes, room, home, neighborhood, etc

      I would water the number one reason for not wanting the crinkle bags is to permit quiet night time snacking so as not to wake others in the house.