Too much plastic packaging

[SGreenberg]

Request to Festool: please cut down on your use of plastic packaging. I just received several vacuum parts, and each one is in a rigid plastic package. Why not put them in cardboard? There were even wrapped in plastic bags inside the plastic package. And the parts were plastic and stainless steel, so it's not like they could get water damage. Same for splinter guards. How about a cardboard box for them?
Thank you.

 

[DeformedTree]

I hope your not refering to the systainer has packaging  [smile]

I think you might be referring to retail packaging (claim shells).  They probably could go to cardboard, I don't think a dealer would care, but now you will have people opening those boxes to see the part.  Festool all ready uses very cheap plastic on those, most items show up in broken plastic shells.

I'd say in general they use very little packaging. I have to re-pack stuff that comes in systainers as everything inside is tossed, and when they ship them, they come in simple cardboard boxes, which is good.  Given folks get stuff that shows up damaged, I don't think they are over doing it. Some items I have got had no packaging at all, the dealer just tossed it in a box in the mail.

 

[Vondawg]

Can’t believe  this a real post

 

[mino]

Request to Festool: please cut down on your use of plastic packaging. I just received several vacuum parts, and each one is in a rigid plastic package. Why not put them in cardboard? There were even wrapped in plastic bags inside the plastic package. And the parts were plastic and stainless steel, so it's not like they could get water damage. Same for splinter guards. How about a cardboard box for them?
Thank you.

Cardboard is actually WAY LESS environmentally friendly than the minimum-weight plastic molds Festool uses.

That is, unless you plan to throw it out somewhere in the forest where the paper will rot while plastics will not. But you are not planning that, are you ?

And yes, Festool is notorious to under-package.
My CTM came with a broken wheel as there was simply not enough wiggle room when the shippers threw the heavy box around...

Locally, the tools sometimes ship directly in Systainers on a palette. No further packaging, just a wrap to hold the stacks. I am not sure one can get more barebones than that.

 

[RustE]

...
Cardboard is actually WAY LESS environmentally friendly than the minimum-weight plastic molds Festool uses.

That is, unless you plan to throw it out somewhere in the forest where the paper will rot while plastics will not. But you are not planning that, are you?
...

Not sure about your region, but in the United States not everyone has recycling services available. Thankfully, I'm currently in a city that has a really good recycling program as part of the trash collection.

 

[mino]

Not sure about your region, but in the United States not everyone has recycling services available. Thankfully, I'm currently in a city that has a really good recycling program as part of the trash collection.

You do not need recycle anything. Just put stuff to garbage collection instead of dumping it in the near forest/river/sea.

Recycling generic plastics is actually mostly ineffective. More energy is consumed to recycle them that would cost to make new stuff from scratch. It is much better to just burn instead of natural fuels as they are an excellent fuel. And make new from oil instead of burning the oil ..

Ideally, you will burn plastics along with other waste for electricity/heat but even storing it on a dump to be burned later, a century later, is fine.

The only real problem with basic carbon-hydrogen-oxygen style plastics is when people throw them out to the nature as it persists there.

 

[demographic]

You can just compost cardboard and the corrugated stuff allows better airflow through the compost so the other stuff breaks down faster.

 

[AlexThePalex]

Ideally, you will burn plastics along with other waste for electricity/heat but even storing it on a dump to be burned later, a century later, is fine.

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING good about burning plastic.

 

[mino]

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING good about burning plastic.

You are probably not familiar with how industrial waste burning works.

Basic plastics based on just carbon, hydrogen and oxygen (polypropylene, poethylene, polycarbonate, polyesters etc.) are an excellent industrial fuel.

When you burn them at high temperature (i.e. NOT at home furnace) of >1000 C, all the energy stored in them is released and the end products are only CO2 an H20. The same as when you burn (pure) natural gas etc.

This means by burning at a waste plant you will extract all the leftover chemical energy from them AND avoid the waste poluting the environment at the same time.

The ideal lifecycle is primary energy (fossil/nuclear/renewable) => plastics precursors => polymerization => molding to required shape => USAGE => waste collection => burning (returning back some of the energy user for production. That is a closed cycle where no environmental pollutants end up left at the end of the cycle.

When you try to "recycle" most of the plastics, specially the various packaging materials which are impractical to separately collect due to their chemical diversity, you end up consuming MORE energy than the difference for a produce-burn-produce-again cycle.

This is a bit counter-intuitive for someone not with chemical engineering background and most environmentalists do not have one ... But the end result is that "plastic or paper recycled (some only)" > "plastic burned at waste plant (rest)" > "paper burned at a waste burning plant(rest)" >> "paper thrown in the nature" >>> "plastics thrown in the nature".

Paper production being much more environmentally crappy (trees cut, waste from pulp production, energy for pulp production) , compared to plastics production, means that plastics are better environmentally when handled properly. I.e. - as long as their waste is not thrown around.

It is a big "As long" in practice ... Of course.

 

[AlexThePalex]

When you burn them at high temperature (i.e. NOT at home furnace) of >1000 C, all the energy stored in them is released and the end products are only CO2 an H20. The same as when you burn (pure) natural gas etc.

Ok, joke, right?

So you're saying, with your chemical engineering background, there are only C,H, and O molecules in plastic? But not that there are countless types of additives to make plastic do better what you want?

Second, with your chemical engineering background, it is of course possible to ALWAYS get a perfect burn, and not have any partial burns, anytime? Real life engineers know better. There is no perfect burn, anywhere, anytime. Doesn't matter so much if it was just one fire burning, but multiply this for almost 8 billion people, and it adds up.

And lastly, and MOSTLY, it is simply a big waste to just destroy plastic while it is a very good material to recycle. Thought of that?

 

[mino]

When you burn them at high temperature (i.e. NOT at home furnace) of >1000 C, all the energy stored in them is released and the end products are only CO2 an H20. The same as when you burn (pure) natural gas etc.

Ok, joke, right?

So you're saying, with your chemical engineering background, there are only C,H, and O molecules in plastic? But not that there are countless types of additives to make plastic do better what you want?

Second, with your chemical engineering background, it is of course possible to ALWAYS get a perfect burn, and not have any partial burns, anytime? Real life engineers know better. There is no perfect burn, anywhere, anytime. Doesn't matter so much if it was just one fire burning, but multiply this for almost 8 billion people, and it adds up.

And lastly, and MOSTLY, it is simply a big waste to just destroy plastic while it is a very good material to recycle. Thought of that?

Ref additives you are correct. But these are a bigger problem for practical recycling than for burning actually.

Not all plastics are "good materials to recycle". And the distinction is not about material often but more about what form/size they have, how much they get contaminated in use.

It is one thing that thermoplastics *can* be re-melted and re-mould again. Another thing is what you can make from them afterwards. It is no secret Europe has now more plastics gathered for recycling than it is able to create useful products from.

But that was not my point. Recycling when feasible/practical i.e with a better energetic balance than burning is of course better. The discussion was really about a (bigger/heavier) cardboard package versus a lighter molded plastic package and the fact their footprint is actually the other way around than implied.

 

[mrboult]

I agree. Packaging is one thing I notice a lot about companies. Sadly not many companies impress me.

 

[AlexThePalex]

Ikea is the worst, it is simply amazing with how much paper, carton and plastic you end up with for a single shelf.

 

[semenza]

Ikea is the worst, it is simply amazing with how much paper, carton and plastic you end up with for a single shelf.

Just a curiosity question ---------  does Ikea make their own packaging from their own forests?  Like the source of wood for their furniture?

Seth

 

[semenza]

I have noticed that part of this discussion centers around the idea that plastic is either burned, recycled, or thrown into the woods. But in the USA  much of it still ends up in a landfill with all the rest of peoples trash and garbage. That puts a different perspective on some of the debate about which is better  -- cardboard or plastic?

Seth

 

[AlexThePalex]

Just a curiosity question ---------  does Ikea make their own packaging from their own forests?  Like the source of wood for their furniture?

I have no clue. I just assemble their products from time to time. As every item (door, shelve, cabinet, drawer, slides, grips, legs, hinges) can be ordered separately and is packaged separately, one single cabinet leaves a mountain of packaging material.

As for landfills, that's outdated. Or should be. And it is even more wasteful than burning because you get no energy back. Here in Holland we have no landfills anymore, everything that can be recycled is recycled, and the rest is burned. Here garbage is actually worth money.

 

[DeformedTree]

The big thing is recycling doesn't work or is broken.  Lots of stuff in theory can be recycled, and people see the logo and think they toss it in the recycling and all is good.  But the issue is just because in theory something can be recycled and there is a process for it, most place don't do it.  Such as plastics, only HDPE is highly recycled, the rest, basically not at all. But folks toss any plastic in the bin thinking it can be recycled.

Recycling is great for metals (steel, aluminum, copper), paper has a reasonable level of being recycled.  The rest just ends up at a dump.  For years the west sent the recyclables that couldn't be recycled, to places like China. Now they stopped taking it and all the recyclables are piling up.

It comes down to accepting that you have trash, you basically have 2 options, you put it in a landfill where it sits forever and causes who knows what long term impacts, leaks, emissions.  Or you toss it in an incinerator, get rid of it, get some energy from it now, and just have to deal with some emissions now, but it's something you can control.

People like to hate the idea of an incinerator, but at the same time they probably don't know they very well live close to one and don't even notice it.  Some are very large and right in urban centers, folks don't even notice.

Neither plastic or cardboard is great.  Cardboard covered in fiberglass and other tapes and stickers is basically useless.  Plastic has it's issues.  Simple packaging is better, stuff that isn't high gloss inserts, multiple material etc.  Plane brown boxes. Use less.

IKEA is good overall, they don't make a mess of their cardboard, it's clean for recycling.  When you consider how much mass they are shipping, and how much smaller it is by being flat packed, it's a win. They have the thin foam separators, and sometimes the plastic wrap they use on parts.  But folks don't want their stuff scratched or damaged either.  Yeah you can have a lot of boxes when you complete assembling something from IKEA, but just picture what it would be like if it didn't come flat packed. Shipping a bookcase whole would be so much worse. 

 

[mino]

I have noticed that part of this discussion centers around the idea that plastic is either burned, recycled, or thrown into the woods. But in the USA  much of it still ends up in a landfill with all the rest of peoples trash and garbage. That puts a different perspective on some of the debate about which is better  -- cardboard or plastic?

Seth

A properly managed landfill is not a problem. Certainly not for plastics/paper which are pretty much inert. You can process it 100 years later and all will be fine.
The problem is with toxic chemicals going to the landfill - like stains, those "nice color" in the magazine etc.

Plain polycarbonate or a plain cardboard at a landfill is a non-issue as far as the health of the environment is concerned. An aluminum can is a couple orders of magnitude bigger issue and that is only the start.

 

[squall_line]

IKEA is good overall, they don't make a mess of their cardboard, it's clean for recycling.  When you consider how much mass they are shipping, and how much smaller it is by being flat packed, it's a win. They have the thin foam separators, and sometimes the plastic wrap they use on parts.  But folks don't want their stuff scratched or damaged either.  Yeah you can have a lot of boxes when you complete assembling something from IKEA, but just picture what it would be like if it didn't come flat packed. Shipping a bookcase whole would be so much worse.

I think most of Ikea's flat-packed furniture also has something in the description along the lines of "can be reclaimed for energy at end of life" or something to that effect.  I remember first reading that about a dozen years ago and thinking "that's an interesting way to say 'you can burn this for heat when you're done sitting on it'".

 

[DeformedTree]

IKEA is good overall, they don't make a mess of their cardboard, it's clean for recycling.  When you consider how much mass they are shipping, and how much smaller it is by being flat packed, it's a win. They have the thin foam separators, and sometimes the plastic wrap they use on parts.  But folks don't want their stuff scratched or damaged either.  Yeah you can have a lot of boxes when you complete assembling something from IKEA, but just picture what it would be like if it didn't come flat packed. Shipping a bookcase whole would be so much worse.

I think most of Ikea's flat-packed furniture also has something in the description along the lines of "can be reclaimed for energy at end of life" or something to that effect.  I remember first reading that about a dozen years ago and thinking "that's an interesting way to say 'you can burn this for heat when you're done sitting on it'".

Basically any of their wood furniture says "can be burned for heat" for the environmental friendly aspect.  They are not wrong, assuming you don't add finish and such.  Folks in Texas recently put this to use.  But this is the general issue with a lot of products, is paints, finishes, etc that turn it into a waste product.