
Pringles tube tries to wake from 'recycling nightmare' - Kaibeezy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54108336
======
chongli
I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house.
Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to destroy
a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials out of
it.

This is one of the big problems I have with recycling. When I was a kid in
school (throughout the 90’s), we learned the 3 R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle.
Notice that recycle is last on the list.

The list is in order of increasing waste for a very good reason. We should
first strive to reduce the amount of wasteful stuff we purchase, barring that
we should try to reuse things around the house (plastic bags, containers,
etc), and finally if we can’t do either we should recycle the stuff to try and
recover the materials.

Nowadays I don’t hear about the 3 R’s anymore. It’s become all about people
dumping everything in a box and making it somebody else’s problem, just as
trash was in the first place.

~~~
masklinn
> I love Pringles tubes. We reuse them all over the place around the house.
> Never really thought of recycling them. Seems like a terrible waste to
> destroy a perfectly good container just to get a ~penny’s worth of materials
> out of it.

Recyclers are downstream from consumers. They can’t stop consumers from
throwing away their pringles cans, and until Kellogg’s starts bulk-selling
Pringles in bags… people will throw cans away, there’s noly do many cans you
can find a use for.

I can’t find any specific production numbers but the internet tells me
Kellogg’s sells for billions in snacks and pringles are a significant fraction
of that. A Pringle can is a buck or two, meaning 6 figures Pringle cans being
sold every year, if not 7.

~~~
chongli
That’s where the first R comes in. Only buy as many Pringles cans as you can
reuse. People don’t want to do that either, though, because Pringles are
addictive. That may be the root problem.

There’s no way they’ll sell Pringles in bags though; they’re way too delicate
for anything but a purpose-built rigid container.

~~~
cogburnd02
> a purpose-built rigid container.

Why not Al cans?

~~~
ethbr0
> Why not Al cans?

I am sick and tired of this being the solution to every problem!

Anytime there's a legacy business model in need of polishing, they plate it in
Al and call it something new.

Al doesn't work that way. There's many uses it excels at, but it's not a
panacea.

Nowadays, we have Al toasters, Al refrigerators, even Al watches. Yet no one
stopped to ask if these were devices that needed Al.

Hell, I even heard about a company that's building Al homes. Interface with
your car and everything.

Personally, I can't wait for the next Al winter.

/1950s sarcasm

~~~
zxcmx
Al = Aluminium

------
fortran77
There's always the "cantenna"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantenna)

~~~
ghostDancer
Or Enigma Machines:
[http://wiki.franklinheath.co.uk/index.php/Enigma/Paper_Enigm...](http://wiki.franklinheath.co.uk/index.php/Enigma/Paper_Enigma)

------
Ensorceled
We need to focus on the second R, reuse.

I have mason jars that my grandmother and then my mother used for pickling.
The only waste is the rubber ring which needs to be replaced occasionally and
THAT could be recycled. Many of these bottles have been used for 80+ years
now. I have a few Ball jars which my GREAT grandmother used 100+ years ago.

Beer bottles in Canada are reused dozens of times and are recyclable (brown
glass) when broken or worn out.

The only containers which are infinitely recyclable are aluminum and coloured
glass (nearly), but that takes energy.

Plastics are not currently infinitely recyclable as the polymer chains break
down. A lot of plastic is simply not recyclable at all in most of North
America [1]

We need to just force manufacturers to bear the costs of recycling their
products 100%: everybody would switch to reusable and this current clam shell
packaging disaster would come to a close.

[1] [https://apps.npr.org/plastics-recycling/](https://apps.npr.org/plastics-
recycling/)

~~~
pkphilip
One of the key issues with using bottles is the cost, weight and the fact that
there is a lot of breakage. The weight alone increases the cost of the supply
chain by several times.

One key invention which could really help here is flexible glass packaging.
Interestingly, one of the lost technologies from the Roman era is flexible
glass:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_glass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_glass)

Corning does have flexible glass, but used primarily for interiors and not for
packaging: [https://www.corning.com/in/en/innovation/corning-emerging-
in...](https://www.corning.com/in/en/innovation/corning-emerging-
innovations/corning-willow-glass.html)

~~~
remote_phone
Let the costs increase then.

All food containers must be recyclable or compostable. This should be a rule
across the globe.

We should also ban single-use plastic. If costs need to go up, then let them
go up. Consumers need to understand the costs of their consumption and we
can’t destroy our planet so that corporations can be more profitable.

~~~
II2II
> We should also ban single-use plastic. If costs need to go up, then let them
> go up. Consumers need to understand the costs of their consumption and we
> can’t destroy our planet so that corporations can be more profitable.

The hitch is affordability for people with lower incomes. While it is easy to
be critical about single serving beverages and over packages potato chips, the
vast majority of goods found in most grocery stores are packaged.

~~~
leetcrew
> While it is easy to be critical about single serving beverages and over
> packages potato chips, the vast majority of goods found in most grocery
> stores are packaged.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we need to do away with packaged foods
entirely. the fundamental relationship between surface area and volume means
we can improve things substantially just by using bigger containers. a plastic
quart-sized container of apple sauce still uses a lot less plastic than two
four packs of single-serving cups. once you're buying and selling food in
larger containers, the material cost of the container contributes less to the
total cost of the product, leaving some headroom to use more expensive
materials.

~~~
II2II
That makes sense, and I was thinking along similar lines in terms of the cost
of food, but it is also something that has to be driven by consumers.
Government regulation may help, but it may not.

Getting ride of single serving packaging cannot really be done through the
initiative of individual businesses. Consumers will simply switch to products
providing single serving packages if that is what they desire. What has to be
changed is the desire. You also have to consider that there are cases when
small package sizes are legitimate, such as when someone uses very little of a
product.

Regulation may not solve the problem either. Some people simply prefer single
use packaging over cleaning and reusing smaller containers. Consider something
like school lunches. When schools ask families to pack lunches using reusable
containers, there is often a backlash and a few who simply don't understand
the concept of reusable packaging. Quite often, things get sent in baggies or
plastic wrap or inexpensive containers that are only used a handful of times
before being tossed. This is ignoring the world of adult lunches, where adults
often do the same or worse (e.g. ordering food in disposable packaging).

As simple as the solutions may sound, getting people to go along with it is a
difficult problem.

------
ed_elliott_asc
The thing is they don’t need that plastic lid. They say without it the food
would be spoiled but if you have a big bag of crisps, you open them and eat
them or they go off - this is no different.

Kellogg’s seem to believe they have invented a type of crisp that can only be
eaten over a period of time.

~~~
DFHippie
It's the Pringles brand, though: "once you pop you just can't stop" or
something like that. They've built this story around the sound of the lid
popping off.

~~~
jayd16
That slogan ironically cuts into the "it needs to be resealable" argument.

------
justnotworthit
Isn't tetrapak more complex in makeup and more ubiquitous? How is it recycled?
Because there's more of it, there's a better effort at handling it?

* I'm currently testing used tetrapak as shingle siding for dog houses!

------
ChuckMcM
Well if they get rid of the foil interior what will I use for a 2.4Ghz
waveguide?[1]

[1] [https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/wireless-
hacks/05960055...](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/wireless-
hacks/0596005598/ch05s04.html)

------
jacknews
The plastic-in-the-environment problem is mainly about collection. Collect it,
bury it, and it will eventually turn back into oil.

But IMHO manufacturers should be on the hook for the lifecycle of their
products. Either through taxes, or some kind of market-driven bidding
mechanism, they should have financial penalties (or even rewards), based on
product environmental impact.

The whole recycling movement seems to me to be a way for companies to palm off
this responsibility onto the public, and then win 'green publicity' when they
deign to make their products slightly more amenable to the (usually public-
funded/volunteer/coerced/etc) recycling system.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
> The plastic-in-the-environment problem is mainly about collection. Collect
> it, bury it, and it will eventually turn back into oil.

This is incredibly uninformed and misleading. Burying it will not solve any
problems, a PET bootle takes something like 450 years to fully breakdown, on
top of that the particles released as it breaks down will be washed away into
the subsoil and end up in ground water, then rivers, water supply, and
eventually then back into the oceans.

Most plastics also have a hazardous health side effect they act as hormone
disruptors, effectively mimicking estrogen. Having any additional plastic
purposefully break down and leak in even greater concentrations, into our
water supply, sounds like a remarkably poor idea.

~~~
jacknews
It will solve the PET problem for 450 years.

But my point is less to do with how to treat waste, than the fact that the
most important first step is to actually collect it. In much of the world,
collection is not happening properly, which is why we see so much plastic
waste washed into rivers and oceans.

Of course if we create less waste to start with, that also helps, but that
will only happen if manufacturers are pressured where it matters, the bottom
line.

------
m0nty
> Kellogg's says these lids will still produce the distinctive "pop"
> associated with the product.

No it isn't. Is this "pop" really such a big deal that they've been holding
back on the redesign for so long?

~~~
jdmichal
Their marketing is based around that sound... So it probably is seen as a big
deal to them. Probably some pop-psych idea around having that sound be
associated to them through the commercials and usage.

~~~
pessimizer
I've never heard a pop during a lifetime of probably eating my bodyweight in
Pringles. Either it's always been purely a marketing thing and they're finally
actually engineering it into their packaging, or people are attacking Pringles
lids in a way I do not understand.

~~~
Groxx
Same - I've literally never heard that "pop". I grew up thinking it was just
their slogan, referring to the act of opening the tube (as "pop the
top/hood/etc" is used for many other things), not onomatopoeia.

------
exabrial
Wouldn't it be better to use as much paper as possible in the packaging and
certify the paper is sourced from sustainable forestry? They we use the
package as a carbon sink.

~~~
yourapostasy
Paper lacks many properties sought after in plastic packaging. We end up
coating the paper if we try to make it exhibit those properties, and the
coatings frequently involve some kind of polymer.

If it wasn't for the microplastics problem that I don't see a solution for yet
(need something on the order of Drexlerian nanotech to scour the environment
and pull the microplastics out of it), then more durable, reusable designs of
plastic packaging would be amazing.

Glass and stainless steel containers are my go-to solutions at home, but many
people are unwilling to put up with their bulk and weight. My ideal is
hermetically sealed glass containers [1] that use ground glass joints to seal,
but there is a limited selection of their form factors (I can't find tall
sizes for holding spaghetti, for example). I haven't been able to find
stainless steel containers with reusable recycled rubber or cork gaskets in a
good selection of form factors.

I've wondered what it would take to coordinate with a manufacturer or
distributor to link up a crowdsource-driven supply chain to optimize for
reduce and reuse. Crowdsource enough local people within biking/PRT/drone
distance who will commit to buying some specific quantity periodically over a
few years, and source wholesale quantities of goods to eliminate retail
packaging. Send a truck on an optimized route picking up pallet loads of goods
from different manufacturers/distributors. Use material handling robots to
break down the full truck load of goods, pick and place into bins, and queue
for last mile distribution of first month delivery. Remainder sits in a super-
insulated (R-100 or so) warehouse. The question is about finding that
breakeven point where the automation productivity can be captured by a small
enough group of people that makes it worthwhile for them to implement instead
of letting an Amazon/WalMart/Target capture the lion's share productivity
gains' benefits.

[1] [https://www.thomassci.com/scientific-supplies/Ground-
Glass-B...](https://www.thomassci.com/scientific-supplies/Ground-Glass-
Bottles)

------
sandreas
Goodbye cantenna ;)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantenna)

------
kefabean
I wish there was more (food) packaging regulation to limit the types of
materials, how they are combined and how they must be reused or recycled. I
try to avoid, reuse, refill, recycle but it still makes me sad how much
material in my own home is discarded in ‘recycling’ but probably in reality
goes straight to landfill.

------
kbos87
If you want to have your eyes opened about just how little of the material you
probably think you are recycling actually gets recycled, watch the recent
Frontline episode called “Plastic Wars”.

The sad truth is that while recycling is worthwhile, it’s also a woefully
insufficient solution that has been held up by the petroleum industry as a
cure all to prevent a backlash against plastic. Even products that are labeled
recyclable often aren’t once they are processed.

One thing that sticks with me (and this is just one representative example) is
that almost none of those plastic salad containers that have overtaken
supermarkets are ever recycled.

[https://youtu.be/-dk3NOEgX7o](https://youtu.be/-dk3NOEgX7o)

~~~
treis
>while recycling is worthwhile,

I'm not sure it's that worthwhile for most things. Glass is made of sand,
which we have plenty of. Cardboard is trees which are renewable. Plastic is
petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it.
Metal is rarer and some of that is worthwhile to recycle but again not like
we're running out of iron ore. We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in.

The thing we should focus on is carbon footprint. Reducing that is an
immediate need and has long term benefits. We should not be burning more
carbon to conserve the things we have plenty of.

~~~
mac-chaffee
> Glass is made of sand, which we have plenty of.

On this point specifically, glass is made of a specific type of sand that is
high in silica, which we are running out of:
[https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-
is...](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is-running-
out-of-sand)

~~~
treis
Sure, I'm not arguing that we shouldn't recycle things when it makes economic
sense. I just don't think it should be a goal in of itself. Or at least we
should not be spending truly scare resources (mostly carbon capacity of the
atmosphere) to conserve resources that aren't.

------
ja27
Lays Stax come in an equivalent all-plastic tube and it's insane how much
plastic that is compared to a bag of regular chips. The other one that bothers
me is the larger Crystal Light packets which come in a very sturdy plastic
container that's at least five times bigger than it needs to be. Even the
generic knock-offs at ALDI come in a similar plastic container. Why not
cardboard?

Here, a good bit of our trash is burned and used to generate electricity
before the ash is buried, so I feel a bit less guilty about single-use
plastics but it's still not good. I'm sure plenty of our recycling stream ends
up there too, either due to contamination or lack of buyers for it.

------
kthejoker2
My immediate thought is it sounds like Kellogg's/Pringles could get a lot of
free positive marketing by just switching to a "100% biodegradable" bag?

Nobody likes Pringles _because_ they're in a tube.

~~~
munificent
The tube and the product are part of a holistic design whole.

Pringles are made by pressing ground up potato paste into a disc shape and
drying them. That makes them weaker than regular potato chips, necessitating a
rigid tube container.

You might ask why make chips that way in the first place? My hunch is that
they exist as a way to use up byproducts produced by other potato products.
Sort of like how sawdust from lumber production is used to make particleboard.

Pringles are essentially edible particleboard.

~~~
kthejoker2
So why not just package them Ritz Cracker style, cardboard box outside, wax
paper inside?

Again, seems more like a failure of imagination.

~~~
munificent
_> Again, seems more like a failure of imagination. _

Sure, but on the designers' part or ours? I certainly would not be surprised
if there were reasons why the Ritz approach wouldn't work.

------
mensetmanusman
The uncomfortable truth:

50% of food is thrown away due to our current habits. This % would be even
higher if we didn’t use multilayer materials to protect food from spoiling.

The only way to solve this is by changing our eating habits (e.g. some things
would have to go away, because they are not economical to centrally produce
and ship everywhere around the world).

That, or you get distributed manufacturing that makes this food on demand
locally.

~~~
DFHippie
A large percentage of this food waste is perishable or unwanted stuff in the
store. Produce gets ugly and, though it's still usable, nobody picks it over
the fresher stuff. Milk gets close to its sell-by date and people pick fresher
stuff. Someone overstocks something and a manager pitches it. Something
doesn't sell. Some of this can go to food pantries, but a lot just turns into
methane in landfills.

As for produce, much perishes en route as well, or is abandoned in the field
as unsellable, or reaches the market where produce managers are shopping for
their stores and it doesn't sell.

Changing our consumer habits is only going to get us so far. Not that it isn't
worth doing, but that 50% figure isn't due to families buying two bags of
potato chips and pitching one.

------
amelius
Nespresso has the same problem with those little pods, but decided not to
change anything about their design and instead focus on recycling.

~~~
sschueller
What are their alternatives? Plastic is worse and paper does not seal
properly. They would need to line paper with something that makes it bad again
for recycling. Letting people collect the used pods and return them for free
makes sense if you want to have a pod system.

Of course you could make coffee the old way.

~~~
amelius
Yes, but making coffee the old way would ruin Nespresso's business model.

------
rdiddly
Nonetheless it's possible to recycle them. Well the foil you tear off is
definitely trash and the lid most likely also, but the wall of the can, you
can cut a slit down the side with a knife and separate it from the metal
bottom. Bottom goes with metals, rectangular lined cardboard sheet goes with
aseptics (lined cartons etc) if your area has a program for that.

~~~
bobthepanda
How likely do you find that people will actually do this though? If people are
not likely to do it that makes the proposition rather pointless.

Hello Fresh gave me something (I think it was a cooling pack) that was
"recyclable" but really only the outside was, and the inside you had to toss
in the trash anyways, and on top of that I'm pretty sure you couldn't touch
what was inside it, and to me that pretty much makes it trash with all the
"buts" involved.

~~~
rdiddly
It's possible, is the extent of what I'm saying.

------
ZeroGravitas
Recycling mentioned on Hacker News always depresses me.

The way problems with it are treated as fundamentally unfixable always strikes
me as against the site's ethos, yet people love pointing them out.

Recycling just gets dumped in landfill!

Ok, lets ban that.

But, actually, its more environmentally friendly to landfill it!

Are you sure? Science doesnt really agree. But anyway, can we make recycling
more efficient?

No, stop trying to improve things. Recycling is bad. If it made sense the free
market would already do it!

~~~
Schwan
I grew up in a normal german household on the 'countryside'.

I alwasy recycled. Never thought about it much and my family is not
'alternative or whatever'.

3 Years ago i see a documentation telling me, that dark plastic can't be
recycled and gets burned. Thin plastic can't be recycled and will be burned.

We have a system called 'green point' which basically means that the producer
has to pay a little bit of money for the packaging they produced so that other
company in germany takes it, its called the yellow bin.

So you have your black bin for garbage and you have a yellow bin for the green
point which are 99% plastic (pringles has that sign on it as well). I thought,
they would have a high recycling rate. Nope 40% of that already
recyclematerial is recycled. 60% is just burned.

I could have thrown this shit away uncleaned, unseperated in my normal garbage
bin for years and you know what? Everyone around me is doing exactly that.

Don't get me wrong, i will not become a pig, i will still put my plastic into
that and sort and clean and recycle but wtf...

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Burning is better for the environment than landfill. It's getting less good
comparitavely as grids become carbon free via renewables, but especially for
district heating its probably going to be a good thing for a while. Half
recycled and half used to avoid burning coal seems a pretty good deal,
especially if its paid for by the producers. So why the big overreaction?

~~~
google234123
There's no chance that buring is better than a landfill. There's so much empty
(useless) surface area on earth. Burning puts poison into the air and requires
a ton of energy.

~~~
Schwan
At least here we do have high requirements for burning stuff so you do have
proper filters etc.

At the end of the day you probably have concentrated toxins after the burning
but handling this shit is probably easier and cheaper than undoing a landfill
in 30 years.

------
dreen
Fred Baur, the inventor of the original Pringles can, was buried in one of
them (on his request)

~~~
gerikson
Gene Wolfe (the SF author) helped develop the machine to make them.

> I was in the engineering development division, and asked to develop mass
> production equipment to make these chips. And we divided the task into the
> dough making/dough rolling portion, which was done by Len Hooper, and the
> cooking portion, which was done by me, and then the pickoff and salting
> portion, which was done by someone else, and then the can filling/can
> sealing portion which was done by a man who was almost driven insane by the
> program. Because he would develop a machine, and he would have it almost
> ready to go, and they would say "Oh, instead of 300 cans a minute, make it
> 500 cans a minute." And so he would have to throw out a bunch of stuff, and
> develop the new machine, and when he got that one about ready, they'd say
> "make it 700 cans a minute." And they almost put him in a mental hospital.
> He took his job very seriously and he just about flipped out.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090916170648/http://home.roadr...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090916170648/http://home.roadrunner.com/~lperson1/wolfe.html)

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Gene Wolfe's job as a plant engineer before he became a full-time author gave
him a front-row seat for other low-quality mid-20th-century American processed
food. In his novel _Peace_ , it is subtly revealed towards the end of the book
that the protagonist’s family business produces Tang (through breaking
potatoes down into their starch and then adding flavoring).

------
alexanderthe-
Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see a good reason why government can't introduce
legislation to enforce standardized packaging across product "classes" to
streamline reuse and recycling - for example, all soda bottles of size x, must
come in shape y, made out of polymer z. The obvious financial impact would be
companies having to potentially retool their factories to facilitate that, but
there can also be sensible tax rebates to prevent the corporations from
crying.

The bottom line is, the cost of doing business has to take into account the
environmental impacts on our planet and the consequences for our progeny.

~~~
ekianjo
> made out of polymer z.

Wow, sounds like you really want to encourage innovation in materials. The
variety of polymers we have serve multiple uses and different functions
because of their numerous unique properties (and costs).

~~~
317070
But it is the variety of polymers that make them so bad. Surely, it is better
to standardize to one material (or rather, standardize for the recycling
process), than to ban the whole class of materials altogether.

------
dec0dedab0de
I really think the focus should be on using biodegradable materials. Basically
no plastic. Landfills would be fine if the trash actually broke down.

------
altcognito
The best approach would be to make corporations and people pay based on the
amount of trash they generate. Similar to VAT, have a GAT.

All of a sudden, consumers would be keenly aware and happy to purchase
products that reduce trash. Even better, weight it against the long term
damage to the environment.

Yes, this is going to be ugly politically, but that's probably one way to
capture the negative externalities of a product.

You could even have a very tiny tag with a number printed on the item that
would allow you to look up a breakdown of what went into calculating it's
'GAT' score.

~~~
hinkley
You’d have to bill them collectively for things like cleaning up the ocean and
you’d get countersued to hell and back. It’d be easier to just tariff
everything, but then you either soft ban that material or embolden them (do
the time, do the crime style).

------
JoeAltmaier
Foil/plastic/paper juice boxes are my vote for 'recycling nightmare'. And kids
use them by the dozen.

~~~
hinkley
The waste processor in Seattle claimed to be able to recycle Tetrapac boxes,
although I’ve no idea how they manage that or if it’s just PR.

------
downshun
There's so much 'repeat trash' that could be repurposed if accumulated instead
of disposed immediately.

------
sandGorgon
FWIW - Pringles tubes are very effective in increasing wifi signal range.

[https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-make-a-wifi-antenna-
out...](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-make-a-wifi-antenna-out-of-a-
pringles-can-nb/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ioJ8i56pA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ioJ8i56pA)

~~~
BlackLotus89
No they are not. They were used because someone did it and documented it, but
the diameter and length is sub-optimal (75mm is too small) should be between
84 and 92mm (diameter).

Since this was probably more a joke I won't get too much into the details, but
if you really want to build a "cantenna" there are great resources out there.

~~~
hinkley
So we need Pringle’s Extra (you can fit your hand in there!) and a little
campaign about mesh networking...

I’m guessing the diameter and length are also wrong for 5Ghz as well?

------
INTPenis
Not once in my life have I "popped" a pringles tube. I thought that was just
an ad.

------
beamatronic
You can store tennis balls. You can make a WiFi cantenna! Many ways to re-use
these cans.

~~~
skocznymroczny
There's a certain popular "adult" usecase involving a rubber glove turned
inside out and two kitchen sponges...

------
mensetmanusman
The use of the word ‘nightmare’ when describing consumer packaging makes
discussion of climate issues seem like a joke to the average person.

Do journalists realize they are being mocked when they highlight this
terminology? Are they doing it intentionally to make a mockery of these
issues?

------
brainzap
How about we just don't buy them.

~~~
theonemind
I don't see why anyone buys them. We have real potato chips made from cut
potato, then the compressed potato dust abomination we call the Pringle. They
have an unsatisfying gritty texture when crunching and chewing them. Eating
pringles makes me want actual potato chips.

------
zoobab
I propose a glass container as a replacement.

------
someonehere
> Kellogg's says these lids will still produce the distinctive "pop"
> associated with the product.

We’re concerned with a pop sound so we’re spending time and resources finding
an alternative way to make the pop. Sounds ridiculous.

~~~
angel_j
And all for 10 cents worth of potato dust cast into the shape of a chip and
covered in sodium.

------
redis_mlc
The Stax chips packaging is almost a 100% reusable plastic bottle, and I think
they taste better than Pringle's, so I buy Stax occasionally.

If the plastic lid was screw-on, it would be ideal for a relief tube when
flying, but it's just press-fit.

~~~
werdnapk
The article alludes to removing the plastic components altogether if possible
in place of the plastic, so yes, the Stax container is easier to recycle, but
still not ideal.

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redis_mlc
I said reuse, which is superior to recycling.

reduce > reuse > recycle

You can learn more here:

[https://www.epa.gov/recycle](https://www.epa.gov/recycle)

Automotive vehicles are the only thing with high rates of recycling - the rate
is almost 100% for the metal.

[https://www.worldautosteel.org/life-cycle-
thinking/recycling...](https://www.worldautosteel.org/life-cycle-
thinking/recycling/)

Household waste in the US is usually quietly landfilled, unless a private
contractor can make money recycling it. (The bluebox separation training is
helpful though for a future date.)

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everdrive
It's quite sad, since there's no reason for pringles to exist in the first
place. They're not good for you, they have no nutritional value, and they come
with tons of waste. All this mess just because a few people with poor impulse
control wanted to be a bit more comfortable.

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burke_holland
Given that most recycling ends up in landfills anyway, I’m not sure it matters
much. We have a much bigger recycling problem.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-
landfil...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/recycling-landfills-
plastic-papers.html)

~~~
throwaway2245
It matters because these problems feed into each other.

If a tonne of recycling is not financially viable because the Pringles cans
are too difficult to extract, then none of it gets recycled.

