
Loop Seems Like a Logistical Disaster That Might Work - smacktoward
https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/consumption-loop-might-actually-work.html
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core-questions
They have to get this into grocery stores for it to work, IMO. I need to be
able to bring back a pile of dirty containers, throw them in a bin, get back
credits covering X new container purchases, and then go walk into the store
and buy new things in the same sort of containers. To get started, all you
should have to do is just buy something. The containers themselves should be
as re-usable as any cheap Tupperware clone.

Shipping this stuff back and forth is pants-on-head retarded. It needs to be
washed and sanitized in-store and filled up with bulk goods in-store.

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Cerium
The stores could send them to a local sanitation depot. I've seen setups in
cities where all the restaurants used such a service. When you sat down the
restaurant would issue you set of plates and bowls in an autoclave bag. You
got to open it yourself so you knew it was fresh. At the end of the meal the
dirty dishes were scraped and dumped into a bin for cleaning.

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cookrn
I got really confused when I saw Loop a few weeks ago as it seems really
similar to
[https://www.loopindustries.com/en/](https://www.loopindustries.com/en/),
which is a Canadian company working on plastic manufacturing that has already
partnered with lots of the industries (beverage, cosmetics) that the org in
this article would like to target. They don’t seem to be the same organization
though? The similarities even go down to the logo...

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nategri
> Reusing the containers will save more material and energy than fashioning
> new ones each time—even with all the additional shipping.

I 100% do not believe this.

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jessaustin
Don't just think of shipping the container back to the bottling plant. Think
of producing raw materials, then shipping the raw materials to the refinery,
the refined materials to the container factory, and the new containers to the
bottling plant. Roughly, this seems like _x < x + y + z + w_, which should be
uncontroversial.

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Grue3
This completely ignores the economy of scale. The process of supplying
containers to the factory is highly efficient, which is why only a little
fraction of price you pay for the product corresponds to the container. You're
replacing this with containers each being shipped on their own airplane and
the postal service having to personally process each and every one (and do
containers themselves need a box to ship them in?).

And that's ignoring the fact that Loop container is much heavier than a
typical plastic container which makes shipping it even more expensive.

