Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

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I'd be more interested in your response to my fundamental premise that the unending, infinite flow of packaging needs to stop.

Everybody doing "some reducing" isn't going to stop an entire industry dedicated solely to creating garbage.

All the graphics designers who design it, all the printers who print it, all the plastic manufacturers who make it, all the software developers who write software to support all these industries, and the brands who buy the garbage/packaging to put their products in. They're all filling every nook and cranny of this earth with garbage.

It's not about "using less". It's about a war that we need to have with every element of the packaging/garbage creation/recycling industry.

And it has to be a war, because the packaging/garbage creation industry isn't going to go without a fight. WE pay them to create garbage by buying products that are delivered in garbage.

We have to hold the brands to account who ship their products wrapped in garbage headed for the ocean.

But all those garbage creation jobs must go. All that garbage creation money must go.

And the smoke screen that we all use to feel OK about packaging... the smoke screen/lie that we call "recycling", it has to go too, because that's what it legitimizing the packaging industries ruin of our earth.

You have a lot of allegations. Do you have any data/sources? You sound a bit... passionate? I honestly don't think you're making stuff up, but just expecting people to join your ranks in a "war" without evidence is wishful thinking in my opinion. I hope that doesn't sound harsh, because what you are saying is confirming my suspicions so I'm actually trying to help your case.

All I want it for people to see that recycling is what prevents us from holding the packaging industry to account.

Once you stop believing in recycling, you start questioning why we accept the infinite flow of garbage that this industry creates.

It is not that simple. All that packaging reduces the amount of stuff that gets thrown out because it goes bad. That alone is worth more than the packaging, but it requires the packaging to either be recycled or burned.

I'm at work so I cannot give you a source, but look at the environmental impact of producing meat vs the packaging.

Switching to reusable containers sounds wonderful, but it's a very hard sell. Standardized sizes would waste a lot of energy in transporting, and proper washing and sanitization will add a significant environmental impact as well, either by energy use, or production of chemicals. Whether or not this is a net positive remains to be determined.

/edit: spelling mistakes

> Standardized sizes would waste a lot of energy in transporting

Why?

All I can see is how this would save a lot of energy in transporting by making it easier to stack things together, as well as making it a little more difficult for companies to play games with packaging size and form factor.

Today packaging is designed to be the minimal it can be. Less cost in production, less space use for transport, less weight, and tailored to the product inside.

If you use standard reusable sizes, cleaning and sanitazation requirements must come first, and it will inevitably be heavier as well.

Packaging of what? For some foodstuffs, yes - but not for many (if most) of them. Definitely not for beauty and personal hygiene stuff, where packaging is used to cheat consumers into thinking they're buying more stuff than they are (even more extreme than with groceries). Definitely not for appliances and consumer electronics, which use absurd amount of packaging for... I don't know, the unboxing experience, I think.

I suppose the situation is much different in B2B and bulk orders (like gastronomy), when the packaging is not also fulfilling a marketing role.

> If you use standard reusable sizes, cleaning and sanitazation requirements must come first, and it will inevitably be heavier as well.

Yes. But it will not be throwaway anymore. It would be great if someone did the math on that. My gut tells me that even the repeated extra cost of shipping additional mass around is much less than it costs to make and dispose of packaging (the bulk of it being probably in the disposal, which producers externalize on the society, and so they prefer churning out new packaging).

I was mainly talking about food packaging, but you do have a point with cosmetics and the like. For consumer electronics I do not agree. Everything I've bought over the last 5 years have come in as small packages as possible. Suddenly shipping phones or whatever in standardized sized containers will just mean it will have to accommodate the largest phone and the void will need some single use filling to prevent damage during shipping.

Can you articulate what data you're asking for? Everything in parent's comment seems to be logic; I'm not sure what part would be played by data.

> At least in Australia, the "recycling industry" is owned by the "packaging industry".

Maybe name them?

> manufacturing industry has in fact worked out how to "own" the environmental movement by pushing "recycling" as the "balance" to the spewing forth of garbage from the packaging industry

Maybe this is just to save costs? This can't be presented as a fact unless there is hard proof.

> Seems to me that world MUST eventually move to a solution which is a set of standardized containers for all products, which are durable, washable, have a refund value attached, and may have paper corporate brand stuck on them after being washed

This is just throwing out a solution. How heavier a standard package would be? What about special cases like materials which are shock sensitive, leaky, smelly, corrosive, ... How costly would be washing them?

> They're all filling every nook and cranny of this earth with garbage.

There must be some data about how are we filling the earth with garbage. Is recycling really useless to combat this?

> You sound a bit... passionate?

Thinking that emotion invalidates any argument, the dumbest fallacy of all.

He/she doesn't say that it does. I read the whole thing as "you sound passionate about this, I agree with your suspicions, why not bring some sources".

In my reading, the ellipses imply a certain condescension, which is a fairly typical response used to de-legitimise the other participant in a conversation.

I didn't mean that (not a native speaker). Did you read the rest of my comment? I thought it would be clear. Anyways, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

It was a misunderstanding then, all cool :)

I agree, recycling is a veil of respectability over a sham situation.

Wait, stop using packaging? It's incredibly useful and cheap. The fact that we can throw it away shows just how cheap it is. That's a fantastic thing. Why not enjoy it?

Isn't the only harm it causes done when it's left to float around the ocean or get eaten by birds? As long as we keep our rubbish more secure and bury it properly, in places that won't leach into water supplies, what's the harm?

>> Wait, stop using packaging?

No one said that. Read again.

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