Too much plastic packaging

[Paul_HKI]

I think it's good to hold suppliers to certain standards when it comes to how they package products but it's better still to lobby your local authorities if recycling facilities aren't accessible to you.  If there's a way to get product to you, there's a way to return packaging from you to a facility to process it appropriately.  Ship it in, ship it out if that's what it takes.

Or just repurpose the packaging.  Those generic rectangular clamshells are useful for all sorts of storage needs around the workshop, from small project parts and fasteners through to rest-stops for brushes during finishing.  It doesn't have to directly into the garbage or recycling - That's entirely up to you as a consumer and ones success or failure to either reduce, re-use or recycle is not dependant on the manufacturer.

 

[RustE]

...
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.

What’s the output from the incinerator? Steam for electric generators? Free heat in the winter?

 

[AlexThePalex]

...
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.

What’s the output from the incinerator? Steam for electric generators? Free heat in the winter?

Electricity and hot water.

 

[jeh]

None of my concern at all other than I want sufficient packaging to get whatever I buy to arrive in one piece. Better to err on the side of too much packaging.

 

[usernumber1]

i sense some cultural and generational gaps. good topic

i thought the kapex was packaged pretty darn smart considering how large and fragile it is

 

[DeformedTree]

People want stuff to come un-damaged, and they want minimal packaging, companies can't win.

Buying stuff in person is the best way to cut down on packaging, and what packaging is used in the bulk shipping is more likely to hit a recycling system, A businesses bailing up cardboard verses hoping a person has curbside pickup, or a pallet that gets re-used verses more boxes, or 1 big box verses lots of smaller boxes.

Expanding recycling doesn't really work. It just adds to the problems. People have gotten into the idea that if they can put it in recycling, all is good.  But again, a lot of what goes into recycling programs (stuff put to curb by folks), still ends up in a dump or an incinerator as programs can't handle that material, or there simply is no market for it. Putting energy into separating, cleaning, moving around, material separate from trash, just to dump it back in with trash because there is no use/market for the material is a greater waste of energy than just sending it to the trash direct.

Letting people think cardboard is fine because they put it in there recycling makes them blind to the issues that we shouldn't be generating massive amounts of cardboard.  Folks buying online and having stuff shipped to their door in packaging, when it's stuff they could just go to the corner store and buy is massive waste. Talking about groceries and similar house hold consumables.

 

[JeremyH.]

Saying that plastic is more environmentally friendly is a lie.

"handled properly" uhuh... Except the shit is everywhere and it doesn't break down. By comparison cardboard that isn't covered in stickers and (plastic) tape may generate a little more CO2 initially, but CO2 isn't an insurmountable problem like plastics in the environment are turning out to be. I don't even like that my Festools are made of conventional plastic but at least I can get years and yeas of use out of them.

As far as Ikea, well, they use illegally harvested wood all day and night... So there isn't much point in discussing the efficacy of anything they do (including trapping people in their store in miles of labyrinth).

 

[mino]

Saying that plastic is more environmentally friendly is a lie.

"handled properly" uhuh...

Not at you but in general. If someone cannot be bothered to throw plastic garbage in the garbage bin, such a person should not comment on ecology.

A poisoned frog from the toxic crap from a paper mill will be much better living near a "non-decomposing" PET bottle she will make a house in. But even better in a clean water without the PET bottle or the crap from paper mills.

Huge amounts of toxic waste are produced to make paper while basic plastics production is a pretty clean process. Actually, more oil is taken from the ground so you can make a cardboard packaging today than is extracted to make an equivalent PC package.

Sometimes I thin the people who proclaim paper bags "save planet" are those who think that cardboard and paper "gets delivered by a truck to a shop". No. It does not. The same milk does not grow in supermarket. This is the result of 1/2 the people studying social studies and physics, chemistry or biology being bad words in schools these days.

All that said, no packaging material is the best packaging material. Same as with the ladies.

Festool does a great job at this, sometimes to their detriment even.
/end rant

 

[DeformedTree]

It all comes down to how you weight the different aspects.  You can make anything good or bad depending on what part of it you focus on. When it comes to environmental impacts, this is a major issue, what people look at varies a lot, and that causes so much issue in coming up with answers.

Paper bags have issues, plastic bags have some benefit, cloth bags have plenty of issues too.

The issues with plastic have nothing to do with the upfront cost/energy.  It's that when it gets in the environment and it will, that is the issue. It breaks down into smaller bits, that are now in everything and there is no getting it out.

Plastic as a material is fine, but as something that is used in disposable items it's a real issue. You have to treat it as it won't be disposed of properly, then what.  Wood fiber, metal, glass in the environment, the environment takes it back.  Plastics it does not.

 

[Ron B]

This is my personal experience on being on the backend of trash.
I own farmland/forest property two states away and one day received a letter from that state's EPA dept. concerning an illegal dump that I knew nothing about.  Basically, I was given a two month time period to clean it up, or they would clean it up for me and charge me either double or triple their cost. I forget, because by this time my brain had fogged over.  Since I own the land I am considered to have the deep pockets so I am liable.  The trash consisted of construction material, household trash, furniture, above ground pool, tires, and electronics.  Electronics are the biggest pain because of the heavy metals and I had to prove to the EPA that these were recycled as electronics (I paid Best Buy per item to take the electronics).  Tires (I had hundreds) is another pain and required me to have an EPA certified hauler to come to the site and pick up the tires and I paid per tire.  I could stage the tires in piles, but had to keep covered with tarps to prevent mosquitoes laying eggs in water collected in the tires.  (I had snow on the ground when I started and was done by April).  What I hated most is  plastic.  A plastic milk jug in a ditch will just completely fill full of dirt.  Plastic trash bags get tangled and buried and you fight each bag getting it untangled out of the dirt.  OSB after laying under 6" of snow is too heavy to even pick up.  Concrete is not a problem with the EPA and I left in place.  Drywall would absorb back into the ground, but for EPA reasons I cleaned it all up.  I had sixteen tons in a 40 yd roll off-had to pay a hefty surcharge because the limit was 5 tons. (the front of the truck came 2 feet off the ground loading the roll-off) I also probably recycled a ton of steel as there was a lot of automotive parts. I spent every weekend and all my vacation for the year driving over 300 miles away to clean up other people's trash.  This was the year of my 40th wedding anniversary and I had to tell the wife I had no vacation to take her anywhere.  It was not good.

I was able to met the EPA requirements and jumped through every hoop they threw at me.  But I hate people that dump their trash in the country.  So please just recycle your own stuff through proper cycles.  Cardboard breaks down, drywall breaks down, but take care of your own asphalt shingles and glass and furniture.  If you buy that overseas junk from Walmart, don't drive out in the country and dump it on someone else's property.  You would not want me to catch you.

 

[DeformedTree]

yeah, ilegal dumping is very frustrating, and something that sucks when you have land, as once someone does it, it's too late and it's very hard to stop.  It's real bad when people have all ready loaded it up on a truck, all they have to do is drive to the dump, not the woods.  Most places dumps and such are not even expensive. 

I think where problems like yours pop up is when there are barriers, like places where getting construction dumpsters are insane prices. Or towns decide to ban having a dumpster in the driveway when someone is working on a house.  Or the dumps/transfer stations have terrible hours, or don't let the public use them.  It's something where barriers need to be set very low, remove reason doing anything but taking it to the dump.  If people were dumping steel, then you know something is not working right there.

I think some folks, it just is something they grew up with, it's engrained, they just don't see the issue dumping it like what happened to you or they see it as their right, or how they always did it etc.  Insane yes, but some people just do that sort of thing.

 

[JeremyH.]

Saying that plastic is more environmentally friendly is a lie.

"handled properly" uhuh...

Not at you but in general. If someone cannot be bothered to throw plastic garbage in the garbage bin, such a person should not comment on ecology.

A poisoned frog from the toxic junk from a paper mill will be much better living near a "non-decomposing" PET bottle she will make a house in. But even better in a clean water without the PET bottle or the junk from paper mills.

Huge amounts of toxic waste are produced to make paper while basic plastics production is a pretty clean process. Actually, more oil is taken from the ground so you can make a cardboard packaging today than is extracted to make an equivalent PC package.

Sometimes I thin the people who proclaim paper bags "save planet" are those who think that cardboard and paper "gets delivered by a truck to a shop". No. It does not. The same milk does not grow in supermarket. This is the result of 1/2 the people studying social studies and physics, chemistry or biology being bad words in schools these days.

All that said, no packaging material is the best packaging material. Same as with the ladies.

Festool does a great job at this, sometimes to their detriment even.
/end rant

The paper mill near me that provides all the news paper for many of the major newspapers in the United States does not pollute. They actually put clean water back into the water way they pull from.

Furthermore there are more trees in the United States than at any other time in history due to forest management. Lately that has been a problem due to a lack of management. That's because Canada has flooded the US with subsidized lumber. That matters because private organizations use to manage forest land by replanting and maintaining with the agreement they get to log (non-clear cut). The lack of management has led to more forest fires since the pattern of forests was not as natural.

You're discussion magazine print, trash print, not non-chlorine print and news print. And there's a big difference between a plastic bottle not decomposing and making continual contact that makes it shed micro particles all the time. They're finding plastic in everything in nature... CO2 we may start harvesting for profit, micro particles? Uh... not possible, you can't filter the entire ocean and every square inch of top soil.

 

[JeremyH.]

This is my personal experience on being on the backend of trash.
I own farmland/forest property two states away and one day received a letter from that state's EPA dept. concerning an illegal dump that I knew nothing about.

I was able to met the EPA requirements and jumped through every hoop they threw at me.  But I hate people that dump their trash in the country.  So please just recycle your own stuff through proper cycles.  Cardboard breaks down, drywall breaks down, but take care of your own asphalt shingles and glass and furniture.  If you buy that overseas junk from Walmart, don't drive out in the country and dump it on someone else's property.  You would not want me to catch you.

That's brutal. The world would not miss such humans..