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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Environment
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I stand firmly on team "let's set the rules first, and if you can't figure out how to stay in business too bad". That's where ubi would be great - we can't keep worrying about jobs with the changes that need to happen
But the main difficulty is flexible and light water/airtight containers. Plastic is amazing at it - even paper or aluminum almost always uses plastic lining. There are other options, but they're generally inferior and hard to scale - stuff like
Additionally, these things might need to last for months or years in storage, often in humid environments - anything biodegradable is going to have problems
But again, we're all being poisoned by this. I think they should be phased out with extreme aggression - if we all have to go back to dried or very fresh goods, so be it - it would probably be healthier. With such a huge incentive, the technology would get there pretty quick.
We need to go back to washing and reusing (not recycling, reusing) containers. It's absolutely insane that we invent some of the most durable and resilient materials known to man and then make "disposable" single-use packaging out of them.
WTF happened to bottle deposits, anyway? Bring them back, especially at a price high enough to get people's attention (say, 50¢ or more), and watch the problem solve itself.
Totally. Reduce and reuse all the way - although with plastics, reuse unfortunately often means mechanical and chemical stress, which makes it shed that much more microplastics
Unfortunately, even with glass it's cheaper to just buy new ones. Inspection and cleaning isn't easy, and it takes more energy to work with this less pure glass than it would to just start fresh. Unless we crack something like fusion and power becomes basically free, it's not going to be the economical option
It's exactly the kind of situation where companies need to be forced into it. The savings aren't so extreme that they couldn't do it - but they're never going to take that step voluntarily