This piece of shit thing? https://www.pro-e.org/the-green-dot-trademark
How this has been allowed to exist for so long is beyond my ken. The logo should look ENTIRELY different as it's basically false-advertising for the vast majority of people who have no idea what it actually represents.
- ed spelling
Yup -- another business trick is in McDonalds -- the company that supplies the beef in Ireland is called "100% Irish Beef" and thus they put that on the packaging even if the beef doesn't come from Ireland.
I've seen this don't with the equivalent of "100% recyclable" as the name of the company to pass the product off as environmental.
However the main problem is still consumer knowledge of whats recyclable. If people think there is a small chance that something is recyclable they will throw it in the recycling bin -- this is the complete wrong approach. Put everything in the trash unless you're 100% sure it's recyclable. Otherwise you'll "contaminate" the whole batch like throwing a bad apple in on top of a barrel of good apples.
Strongly disagree here. Expecting average consumers to know the difference between polypropylene, polyurethane and polystyrene etc..., just by looking at something, is beyond the pale. That doesn't even take into account bonded materials, like paper coffee cups lined with plastic.
The "main problem" is manufacturers / supermarkets using any kind of packaging that is not recyclable by default, and vague / ever shifting standards from one private waste company to the next on what can be recycled.
There should be a massive tax on using non-recyclable materials for ordinary packaging, and it should have a mandatory skull & crossbones style symbol to show that it is hazardous to the environment.
On a positive note, Ireland just pushed through legislation to accept all kinds of plastic in recycling bins this week: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/household-recycl...
My bottle of sparkling water doesn't really need a green top. The bottle itself doesn't really need to be a light colour tint.
Put branding on paper labels, or better yet - go monochrome and laser-etch/mark everything. Have QR codes on bottles that can have fancy interactive digital marketing/advertising/information.
and you're concerned about people knowing your favorite sugar?
Packaging should be biodegradable by default. Assume that it's going to end up in the ocean, or the woods next to the highway, and we don't want it to be there in 1000 years.
There's also a huge disconnect between what's actually recyclable across California cities, unfortunately.
As far as I know San Francisco recycles clean plastic food containers, plastic cups, plastic plates, and utensils [0], but backwards Mountain View specifically does NOT recycle utensils [1], black-colored containers [2], and fruit containers [2].
[0] https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/your-three-c...
[1] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...
[2] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...
This isn't true, it's an urban myth. The original myth was actually that a company called "100% beef" was a company owned by McDonalds, and this is simply a variant. See: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18916-is-beef-a-...
McDonalds Sourcing Statement - "We work with over 23,000 British and Irish farmers to source our ingredients. Our beef, eggs and milk all come from UK farms."
> I've seen this don't with the equivalent of "100% recyclable" as the name of the company to pass the product off as environmental.
Can you give a source for a company using this? I can't find anything about it online and suspect it's just an urban myth like the first one.
[0]: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18916-is-beef-a-...
My eternal bugbear is Pizza boxes. Used greasy pizza boxes can often be recycled in many municipalities, BUT only in the organic or food waste. Greasy card in the paper recycling stream screws everything up.
.
I used to live in a fairly large warehouse community and 'made myself responsible for the recycling', so I have greyer hair than I should and a slighly less shallow awareness than many people of the problems in all this... :\
Nobody in their right mind has the time and space to properly sort and clean the trash. For the rest, inefficient use of water and detergent has an environmental cost too.
This stuff should be all handled by a combination of centralized work at sorting plants and alterations to packaging. Containers can be cleaned more efficiently in a centralized location, and as for the pizza boxes, perhaps it should be mandated that pizza boxes must be fully lined with aluminum foil on the inside - this would be a win for both recycling and product quality, as the pizza would stay warm for longer.
You're required to separate glass, PET plastic, other plastic, aluminium, clean paper (books, magazines, newspaper), burnables (food, soiled paper), unburnables, and then also large items and electronics require extra fee and an appointment.
Further, it's arguably part of the culture to clean your trash. This is probably because burnables are collected twice a week, unburnables once a week, recyclables once a week, and, if you live in an small apartment complex, of which here are many, there is no place to put the trash. You're required to store it in your apartment until the day of collection, which means if you don't clean it it will stink up your apartment.
So, people do have time or make time.
But, I 100% agree with you that this stuff should be handled by the trash companies. They could do it much more efficiently. They can do it correctly. Having it done in a few locations is also much easier to monitor, regulate, enforce.
As for your pizza box idea, I'm not sure that's not simply complicating things - now you'd have two independently-recyclable materials tha most consumers will simply leave together and dump in the box, leaving you with sorting problems, and oil going from foil to card anyway.
Also, I think the quality of the pizza might be impacted - my gut thinks that a pizza that's allowed to release some of its heat/grease into card makes it less squidgy and sweaty than one left to sit on foil. I haven't researched this though! :)
I mean, for crissakes - a neighbour in my block thinks that actual pizza crusts and leftovers are recyclable.
People!
Live in an apartment and oh the things people throw into the recycling dumpster. Plants, chairs, mattresses, clothes, you name it. People toss it into the recycle.
I honestly would not be surprised if 10% of what gets tossed into that bin actually gets properly recycled.
Drives me nuts!
How do folks have time to clean their glasses but don’t have time to wash a milk bottle or whatever? It takes like 15 seconds…
They don't. They put it in a dishwasher.
> It takes like 15 seconds…
Not counting setup and cleanup times afterwards. Given the two are large enough and most packaging isn't dishwasher safe, it makes sense to clean a bunch of trash in one run, which requires having space for extra trash containers at home...
Edit: is LDN London?
I've somehow gotten myself into the habit of using that shortcode over the past few years. I should really stop - the energy saved from not using three characters isn't really worthwhile :)
[1] https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0323/1124769-corona...
Deliberately obtuse way to write €160 million. Why write that like?
> The meaning of the word "million" is common to the short scale and long scale
It's the same in Europe with many types of olive oil - much of it is grown and extracted in Iberia, but then sent to Italy, etc, for processing, becoming 'Italian' olive oil..
Doesn't bother me though - my favourite olive oil comes from Spain...
The problem is that it isn't true - the 100% British & Irish beef is actually beef from Britain & Ireland. It's a myth that it's the company name.
English & Irish law on the country of origin of products is pretty strong and certinally does not allow processed beef from other countries to be labelled/marketed as British. Also a 5 minute google search shows this is just simply an urban legend.
As you were!
Yea, I'm going to call bullshit on that. "100% Irish Beef" is a marketing slogan by Irish beef producers to signify that all of their beef comes from Ireland.
This is definitely not true. And it's a common myth in Canada as well.
I disagree with this, there are some municipalities that will fine you for putting recycling in the regular trash.
Presumably you're referring to the Green Dot / Der Grüne Punkt [1]. Its often confused with the symbol that indicates recyclabililty. I'm never sure whether that's intentional or not.
Are people actually getting confused by this? It looks very very different from the recycling symbol. It's a different shape both inside and out, a different color, has a different number of arrows, and the arrows abut. It doesn't look anything the same to me.
Yes. Until about 3 minutes ago, I believed this symbol meant "recycleable", and just assumed that it's another case where producers can't (or don't want to) agree on a single symbol scheme.
Also, anecdotally, I know multiple people who believed (and in some cases still insist) that it indicates recyclability.
Metalized plastic film (as used as packaging for potato chips / crisps) is particularly aggravating because it will often be printed with a green dot but is very rarely recycled, and it effectively poisons the genuinely recyclable material that it is often mixed with.
As far as I know San Francisco recycles clean plastic food containers, plastic cups, plastic plates, and utensils [0], but backwards Mountain View specifically does NOT recycle utensils, black-colored containers, and fruit containers [1].
[0] https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/your-three-c...
[1] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...
https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-...
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...
I am under the impression it mostly used to mean plausible deniability for consumers whose consumption could be exported back to China for “recycling”.
But if you put that recycling symbol in a green circle it means something else -- "that the companies that produces the product is committed to recycling" -- whatever that means.
This to me is beyond infuriating. Absolutely in favor of these sorts of measures.