The grams of waste per teaspoon of ketchup seems high.
What else has a super high packaging waste per consumable volume?
One of those coffee pods.
I know some companies recycle them - the aluminium ones. Not sure how that factors in to the waste equation though.
I use the nestle ones. And I’m pretty sure they’re made of single use plastic. I hope I’m wrong though. I have since just used regular beans
Nestle and evil, name a better dastardly duo.
I know!
Afaik all Nespresso pods are recyclable.
At least in NA, it’s either through Nestle facilities or via community recycling facilities. Each order comes with bags for either mail-in (red bags), recycling bin (green bags), or store drop off (I believe black bags).
Costco sells some (San Francisco brand?) made of paper and mesh which are biodegradable.
They make biodegradable pods now that you just throw in with your food waste.
Coffee grounds is also bio degradable.
I don’t really understand the need for the pods. Coffee is best fresh roasted and freshly grinded, which the ones in pods are absolutely not. Once i saw an ad where they sold “vintage coffee” nice rebranding to sell old ass pods, this isn’t wine.
Then they made these coffee balls that fit in a new machine, what are you doing?? Instead ob buying beans and grind them in your machine that can grind all the coffee, people rather buy some pre-ground weird ass coffee balls?Some people don’t care about the flavor of their coffee, only how much of a buzz it can give them and how quickly. Either that or they’ve been conditioned by Starbucks marketing to think that stale, burned coffee actually tastes good.
You have the wrong comparison: k-cups == convenience
– compared to instant coffee, k-cups make much, MUCH better coffee
— if you’re going to fresh grind, yeah I don’t know why you would use that machine. Probably just the inconvenience of having more than one.
— My compromise is a Keurig for when I want convenience or variety, and a French Press for when I want something nicer
I have a Kcup adapter to put in fresh coffee. No waste at all.
There are also podless pods. That are just compressed coffee balls.
Packets of mustard
Packets of mayonnaise.
Packets of Soy-Sauce
This one’s done to death, but kCups.
Also, plastic water bottles.
A more novel pick would be those plastic ez floss picks.
Other than just flossing with string, is there a good reusable floss holder?
Some people may have motor limitations that make flossing difficult. Or just find it gross
They are a bit more expensive than the plastic ones but they make plastic free ones.
My ADHD effectively does not allow me to floss regularly with standalone floss. It’s either those or I’ll do it maybe once a month.
Get a 3d printer and make one I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This one has a reusable handle, it’s just the little C shaped piece of plastic that the floss stretches across that is disposable. I’m sure it’s not ideal, but I can get several uses out of each one before changing the floss. I just rinse it in hydrogen peroxide when I’m done. https://www.amazon.com/Listerine-ULTRACLEAN-Flosser-Refills-Flavored/dp/B00PG59X2K/
Looking for a link to the one above, I found this one, which seems to replace the floss each time with a pretty nicely engineered system, I haven’t tried it though. https://www.orthomechanic.com/easy-flosser/ After watching the video I feel like I would drool into the floss spool compartment and or get it wet when rinsing the thing.
Those little plastic floss things are my weakness seriously. Nothing is better to floss with, objectively. I cannot use traditional floss to save my life. It’s the only wasteful thing I use maybe besides straws
There was this very popular kickstarter for this reusable floss pick (you just tie on new floss). I’m not sure how well they fulfilled kickstarter orders but i ordered one on their website, pre launch, and basically got a bounced email when I tried to contact them about it. Pretty unfortunate.
Tying floss onto one of those little picks sounds like an incredibly frustrating experience.
Eh I can see it being fine. Have a thin slot the floss clicks into on each side, click in the first, wrap around post, bridge the gap, wrap around the second post, click into thin slot. If it had some wag to cut the string after that’d be fine but the floss container usually has it already.
I got one off etsy, it’s just 3d printed. Works fairly well, but the floss can get a little loose towards the end. But it’s easy enough to fix.
Not quite as convenient as the individual picks, but FAR less waste. A trade off I’m happy to make.
The tiny, plastic, fish-shaped soy sauce bottles you get with takeaway sushi.
Not as bad as the others, but it’s been on my mind… My wife bought a box of Ding-Dongs (my daughter begged her) and inside, each one was individually wrapped. They could have put them all in one tray.
Every box of sweets in Japan are like that. There’s an outer layer of plastic, an inner layer and every sweet is individually packaged. It feels so wasteful.
I got some chineese chocolate from a colleague, and it was a plastic wrapped paper box wih 10 smaller boxes on the inside. These smaller boxes were an orb shaped chocolate wrapped in aluminium foil, wrapped in a small plastic bag.
I bought a family pack of chocolate croissants the other week and the packaging was plastic, then they divided them in 3 smaller packets and inside they were individually packed. I don’t really understand
Your not meant to eat them all in one go though, and theyd get stale pretty quick if they weren’t individually wrapped.
Resealable bag. Problem solved.
All those individually wrapped candies EDIT: MicroSD cards!!!
How’re are sd cards wasteful?
I think they mean the packaging. Micro SD cards usually come in a package that’s 10x the volume of the card, itself.
Though, I’m not sure there’s a decent way around that one. It’s really difficult to ship and stock incredibly small products like that.
Have to make sure those small products don’t get lost somehow
the large packaging is so they don’t grow legs and walk out of stores or warehouses. some retailers require larger packaging, plus those non-recyclable trackers embedded inside for anti-theft systems. some of those larger blister packs and hangers are comically large.
Why does the packaging need plastic though? It’s absurd to me that coffe cups and stuff have to be degradable and made out of wood/carton (which is a good thing). And yet for a product where it shouldn’t matter “hey let’s use as much plastic as we can for this packaging”.
I’ve been keeping SD cards in a drawer unprotected for years and I have yet to see one break.
coffee cups
You want to know the ridiculous thing about that - the coffee cup thing is a complete con. They can’t be recycled as paper/cardboard because they have a polymer coating to allow them to maintain their structure.
Mostly it’s cardboard with a small amount of plastic around the card itself so you can see what you’re buying (and presumably so you can also see that somebody hasn’t discretely opens the packet and nicked the card).
I think MicroCenter’s house brand flash media is sold “loose”, or in minimal packaging, at the register. The USB sticks are for sure, and I think the SD and microSD too (though in a plastic carry case).
Individually package candy is a Japanese specialty, like, they seemingly pride themselves on how much they’re being wasteful.
Carton of toothpastes
taco sauce packets at taco john’s are a lot worse in the ‘waste per packet per quantity of sauce’ category.
Thanks for noting the per quantity nuance! :)
Water bottles suck, but you do get 500g of water for 10g of plastic. For ketchup it’s more like 5g ketchup to 2g plastic. Never seen a taco John’s packet and hope I never do
Condoms
(people here really don’t understand jokes)
I feel like the net impact on carbon use makes condoms reasonable.
Also we have to question whether it can be considered waste if it’s actually necessary.
Every sperm is sacred
Packets of tears.
