And now they come in disposable plastic that’s poisoning the entire biosphere. Progress!
This is why we need a plastic tax. If it was even slightly more expensive to use plastic they would switch back to metal or glass in a heartbeat.
You mean plastic coated tin for the metal option.
It’s baby-food glass jars or plastic somewhere.
Correct. The steel cans are lined with plastic. Aluminum cans are as well for some products.
toothpaste used to come in metal tubes too. not even long ago. it’s like they saw everyone else was polluting and they wanted in too smh
Not only that, they advertised recycling to push public opinion that it was okay to switch to plastic, because plastic is recyclable. But they didn’t tell us, it’s never going to be economicaly viable to recycle plastic toothpaste tubes.
It’s not economically viable and you can only make lesser quality plastic out of it.
Nivea Cream used to come in aluminum cans, then they changed to plastic. Recently they announced that they would come back to aluminum. We can still buy in plastic, though. I think it depends on the market.
Yeah, but those metal tubes were awful. I have been brushing my teeth with Tom’s of Maine for decades, and I remember how much I hated those metal tubes. They always split open weeks before the tube was empty and then they’d leak and make a mess and I inevitably wasted a lot of product. When Tom finally sold to whatever corp and they switched over to the plastic tubes that don’t leak and let me use all the toothpaste I paid for, I danced a little jig.
But it’s not that simple. Back then no one recycled the can and all too many wouldn’t now. The can itself was heavier and not as effective. Plastic truly is a wonder material for packaging / it does a better job of keeping things fresh, is more convenient, and saving that weight, saving the energy going into making a can, saving the weight for shipping, is all a benefit of a plastic. We don’t have anything that works nearly as well
We all need to face the idea that convenience items like pudding probably shouldn’t be sold at all, especially with how easy instant pudding is
The group think around here is so crazy. Should we be using less single use plastic, especially the thin films? Absolutely. But the environmental impacts of mining all that metal and making all that glass to replace plastic with, plus the added energy for transporting the heavier packages and the cost of increased spoilage and product lost to dented cans and broken bottles, dwarfs the negative impact of the plastic replacements.
Also, I haven’t seen enough research on where environmental plastic comes from. While they’re are some benefits to just using less plastics, less packaging where we can, it would be much better to focus on the larger sources
Realistically what I’ve seen for larger sources of microplastics is:
- industrial waste
- tire dust
- clothing
I already have a lint trap on my washer outlet and see there are a few filters meant to trap much of the manmade fibers that come off in the wash, to dispose of in the trash rather than back into the environment with treated wastewater. I have no idea whether that would actually be helpful but the filters aren’t that expensive, and it’s one of the few options under my control.
Increased standards on industrial waste cleanup are always a good idea. However a lot of this may be in undeveloped countries
If laundry is a significant source of micro plastics in the environment, we need to figure that out and add filters or something
We really really need to figure out something with tire dust, since it will continue to get worse as more people can afford personal transportation. I did read one article about filtering runoff near roads making a big difference but it was light on details and I’ve only seen something like that once
I actually work in the wastewater industry and from what I’m reading, a properly functioning sewage treatment plant already captures a very high proportion of microplastics. This widely cited study noted above 98% removal efficiency at one plant.
We’re already at approaching 2 log (99%) removal without actually trying to. It doesn’t seem improbable to me that with a few relatively modest tweaks to the system we could get 3 log removal (99.9%). Getting to 4 or 5 log removal is likely where things will get really expensive and challenging. But for now, a 2-3 log removal is probably good enough to focus on other sources like tire fragments/dust that typically pass directly to receiving waters with no treatment at all.
Good to know, thanks. While I don’t know how my system does with this , the treatment facility is new-ish and was supposed to be state of the art.
But then we’re back to needing to know more about the sources of environmental microplastics, then figure out how to cut them
I wonder how well PLA would work for food storage. I learned it’s made with beets and can break down very quickly.
nah mate its always been HOME MADE what are you on about yall don’t have a pudding sock?
I have a clootie, that’s pretty close
If you’re old enough to have cut your tongue on the inside of one of those cans your back and knees hurt.
Literally in the waiting room at the doctor’s office for back pain right now lol. That edge on those cans is so fucking sharp.
Good luck! I’ve had back issues in the past and it’s the worst pain I’ve felt. The only advice I can give is to do the exercises they tell you to do. They actually help!
These tasted a lot better than the shit that comes in plastic. The way that coke in a can tastes better.
It’s like we share a body
Fuck… they do.
*and didn’t take care of your body, yes even laborers, or had a rare degenerative condition or had a random, non age related accident
Pudding might not come in cans anymore, but I still do!
As a UK resident, I only know about these because Bill and Ted used some to repair the phone booth time machine.
You unlocked a core childhood memory. It must have been sometime around the late 1980s pudding started being sold in plastic containers and I forgot they had ever been in cans.
Same. Fruit cocktail, too.
Ohhhh. Fruit cocktail.
Also, in the army it was the pouches of fruit salad or pears. If you lucked out and got that in your box, you could trade for a lot to the poor sap who got cherry pie and “lung in a bag” isn’t doing it for them.
I just popped open a can of fruit cocktail for the kids yesterday. It’s a 350ml can, not a single serve. We portion into mini mason jars.
I’m more surprised that Del Monte used to sell pudding.
When you don’t have fresh fruits for the canning line, you can keep the lines busy with another product you mix up from a shelf stable powder…pudding.
Honestly probably better than the plastic cups they come in now. At least metal cans are actually recyclable (yes I know they still have a layer of plastic on the inside, but much less than a plastic container).
That doesn’t go with the song at all
You know what song it goes to. The bar was much lower back then.
I don’t know which songs you both mean.
Rock around the clock I think
Jeez. I’m surrounded by kids. That’s the way we ate pudding in the 80s. And we liked it that way!
You don’t get that reference either, do you?
Sigh.
They used to roam free on the farms until industrial food factories took over.
It was good af too
I misread that typeface, “a hit” really tried to be “shit” and it went from mildly interesting to meme material really quick. The s in always might have played a part
That’s all on you. The a is spaced far enough away, lol
Remember the Benji movie where the kids used a pudding cup to try to catch him. Man, I wanted one of those pudding cups so bad.
I remember these from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
They could never have repaired the antenna on their time machine with plastic pudding cups, that would have just been silly.
Cool. Now I feel old.
Not trying to be rude, but what did you think they used to come in?
They used to just squeeze it right into your open hands.
Okay there, Ron DeSantis…
Box mix.
