Food Packaging

396 points by aemreunal 3 years ago | 125 comments
  • thomasguide 3 years ago
    This is very interesting, but I can’t help but feel that a glass bottle with a metal cap (and one of those Dutch condiment spatulas) would be just fine for all these applications and also be more easily and effectively reused and recycled.

    I re-use jam jars for food storage, drinking glasses, mini herb gardens, etc. and could incorporate bottles, jars, and other glass containers into a variety of needs around the house if they were designed with second and third lives in mind.

    Add in health effects of microplastics/chemical leaching and glass is again a winner.

    Transportation costs and breakage are perhaps higher, but maybe that’s a cost we should accept?

    • panta 3 years ago
      > Transportation costs and breakage are perhaps higher, but maybe that’s a cost we should accept?

      I suspect that transportation and breakage costs are higher only because we don't account for externalities when considering plastic: in other words producers don't sustain the full costs and are effectively subsidized by the society at large and the environment (through increased healthcare spending, lower QOL, higher obesity rates, lower fertility, and other environmental costs that will be sustained by future generations).

      • thomasguide 3 years ago
        Yes, this is a good point. Plastic is cheap because producers don’t pay the true costs.

        There are externalities with glass too (think shattered bottles in public spaces) but my feeling is they’re fewer and less earth-destroying.

        • nightski 3 years ago
          Glass has externalities as well. If all transportation weight is significantly higher that is going to have a large impact on global warming until we switch to clean transportation which to be frank is a long ways off if we are being honest.
          • ASalazarMX 3 years ago
            Meat, plastics, metals, gas, everything that generates greenhouse gases in significant amounts has to become costlier so people consume it less.

            It's been proven time after time that we won't reduce emissions by appealing to the social conscience of people and corporations, but everybody obeys economic measures.

        • tremon 3 years ago
          and one of those Dutch condiment spatulas

          For reference, I assume you mean a bottle scraper here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_scraper

          They're not specifically intended for condiments (most jam jars are low and wide enough that they can be scraped with a spoon), but for storing more viscous liquids in larger glass (milk) bottles, like yoghurt or vla.

          • sizzle 3 years ago
            Wow where has this been all my life?!? So much wasted product thrown away in bottles
            • ASalazarMX 3 years ago
              So many nearly empty Nutella jars have died for nothing.
          • LargoLasskhyfv 3 years ago
            You know? Maybe a few dozen standard sized and broad/wide necked tops made out of laboratory grade glass would do. That stuff is almost indestructible and does not leach or take on anything in the concentrations used for food/drink stuff. Not even tea or coffee stains! So there is the question of the returns. Why returning when you could have a refill machine in store which could clean them fast in safe ways before refilling? For anything more than a few bottles, use reusable kegs and plug them into an appliance at home? Or those watercooler canisters? I recently saw milk in a plastic bag again, like it has been about 40 years ago?

            Interestingly that bag wasn't sloppy or wobbly at all, because on one side it had a handle, which felt like it was inflated with something, which made it stiff. Still one time use only, though less material.

            • 9dev 3 years ago
              For reference, this is what we do with beer bottles in Germany. There’s two standard bottle types which you can return to shops, which take any brand, as long as it’s the standard type. They return them to a cleaning facility which distributes them back to the breweries (extremely simplified, there’s lots of details like a mandatory deposit on reusable bottles consumers pay to incentivise returning them to stores). But basically, bottles get reused as long as they’re usable. It works quite well!
              • LargoLasskhyfv 3 years ago
                Nopetynope. I don't remember where exactly anymore because I rarely buy beer, but I think it was Lidl where I returned some Tsingtao bottles and heard the machine crushing them, thinking WTF?!

                Edit: I know this isn't true for every glass bottle, but it happens. There are one way glass bottles in .de

                Which you still have to return, to get the 8 or 15 cents(don't know exactly) back if you care.

              • thomasguide 3 years ago
                Plastic American-style milk bottles are funnily enough one of the only easily recycled plastics, if I am remembering correctly.

                Standardized glass containers would be useful, although in some ways already exist (mason jars usually accept common lids, for instance).

                What we need is a shift in mentality away from a plastic-first approach.

                “I’ve got one word for you kid: glass.”

                • ASalazarMX 3 years ago
                  > Plastic American-style milk bottles are funnily enough one of the only easily recycled plastics, if I am remembering correctly.

                  I don't know about the recyclability of those plastics, but I wouldn't be surprised. They're basically two pieces of plastic screwed together without any seal, and it works well enough!

              • KennyBlanken 3 years ago
                That sound you heard was me rolling my eyes at the bunch of nonsense they started off with, which seemed sucked straight from the mouth of a plastics industry PR lackey. The squeeze nipple thingy is pretty brilliant, but an ecological disaster.
                • thomasguide 3 years ago
                  As a cook I find the squeeze actually sort of frustrating. Sometimes it usefully delivers the right amount of ketchup (or mustard, or whatever) to its destination; mostly it splatters. In any case I still have to use a knife to spread it around.

                  Solving the leaky bottle upside down problem is too narrow a focus.

                  • jhugo 3 years ago
                    The trick is to give the bottle a vigorous single shake before opening it, so the air is at the end away from the nozzle. Then there's no splattering.
                    • LargoLasskhyfv 3 years ago
                      McDonalds does that with cardridges in a (don't know the exact word) squeeze gun, and it mostly comes out in the same volume. They also had funnels for ketchup and mustard, where you pushed once, and got more or less the same amounts per push.
                  • spiffytech 3 years ago
                    I remember when ketchup came in glass bottles and you had to use a knife to get it out. I'm much happier with the squeeze bottle era. I like reusability, but I also like things not being a pain to use.
                  • serverlessmom 3 years ago
                    I just wanted to chime in with a tip for people who are struggling to get every last drop of tasty condiments out of containers. There are tiny rubber condiment spatulas designed to aid you in your quest for total condiment use. They are also useful for skin care products, but I wouldn't suggest using the same ones for both applications.
                  • ggm 3 years ago
                    There's a book from 25+ years ago on the design of cardboard boxes which goes to similar levels of obsessive detail. Part Art college, design school, industrial design and part coffee table book.

                    Cardboard, it's origami for industry: sheet form, now optimise assembly, cost and structural integrity alongside ease of production...

                    • jihadjihad 3 years ago
                      When I was in high school, we had a hands-on project in geometry for making nets, which is the name of the geometrical outline of a box when disassembled and laid flat [0]. I remember my teacher saying that if you wanted to make it big with geometry, you should go into the business of making nets for retail companies. All these years later I can see the wisdom.

                      0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_(polyhedron)

                      • _Microft 3 years ago
                        Here are some names of package design books that I came across recently:

                        "The Package Design Book", "Structural Package Design" and "Complex Packaging" via https://mobile.twitter.com/robin7331/status/1484442902050881...

                        • ggm 3 years ago
                          If any of them date from the 1970s, they're good candidates. Didn't recognize the covers but there's often more than one edition of a book. Nice find! they look to be in the same class, possibly even better!
                        • BOOSTERHIDROGEN 3 years ago
                          Which book ?
                          • Teracotage 3 years ago
                            This website has templates for packaging https://www.templatemaker.nl/en/
                            • ggm 3 years ago
                              I wish I could remember. My mum used to bring these things home from the art college library on long loan. It was by an industry professional, on the processes to design efficient boxes, packing, cardboard constructions. I can't find it online.
                              • codetrotter 3 years ago
                                The library possibly has her loan history still. You could ask her to check with them if they could find out for you.

                                Mostly for your own sake I mean. But if you do find out then please let us know too :)

                          • palijer 3 years ago
                            It's incredible that we designed a material for robustness that takes hundreds of years to break down, and it is the default material for designing single use everyday items, and then rely on all the efforts of an ineffective recycling program to maybe get a couple more uses out of it.
                            • gruez 3 years ago
                              It's not really "incredible" when you consider that material properties like "robustness" and "years to break down" aren't sliders you can adjust willy nilly. It just turns out stuff that can break down, break down really fast (eg. cardboard), and the ones that can last at least a year or two, last for centuries.
                              • unobatbayar 3 years ago
                                We should maintain Earth as best as we can, but put more efforts into progress, expansion and technology.
                                • simulate-me 3 years ago
                                  The material you’re taking about, plastic, is made from carbon stored inside of the Earth. If we can reliably get it back in the Earth, e.g. via landfill, then I don’t see a huge issue with it. Also, wood was a forever material prior to the evolution of white rot.
                                  • aldebran 3 years ago
                                    Human manufactured Wooden objects are not found in remote places on earth. Tiny specs of wood are definitely not found in bodies/blood of humans including infants.

                                    Single use wooden items don’t cause flooding and damage wildlife.

                                    These are not the same. They don’t have the same problems.

                                    • bbarnett 3 years ago
                                      This is true, however:

                                      Burying is not the same as being thrown in the ocean, or ripped into little pieces and thrown on the ground.

                                      Burying would likely keep plastic in the immediate vicinity, and we have another tool to add. Bacteria.

                                      There are bacteria which eat plastic. If we could find some anaerobic ones, burying might work quite well.

                                      Of course I guess that leaves the carbon free again, unless...

                                      We find or engineer bacteria which produce a great precursor, to make plastic!

                                      It would be a strange outcome, if plastic became fully renewable.

                                      • 3 years ago
                                        • thetinguy 3 years ago
                                          Tetra Pak is primarily paper.
                                        • colordrops 3 years ago
                                          To be blunt your argument for polluting our environment doesn't feel like it's in good faith when you blame wood for being a pollutant until a fungus showed up hundreds of millions of years ago. I absolutely loathe the term "whataboutism" but this seems like a real example - "what about the fact that wood was a pollutant hundreds of millions of years ago? We should be able to dump plastic now".
                                          • darawk 3 years ago
                                            His point is that nature adapts to these things and learns to consume them eventually. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with storing plastic in the earth, as long as it isn't disrupting ecosystems.
                                            • hallway_monitor 3 years ago
                                              It would be somewhat ironic if a bacteria were to evolve to eat plastic and be invasive. An organism like that would have quite an effect on humanity's habits.
                                              • 8ytecoder 3 years ago
                                                ... and pray that a fungus that can eat plastic shows up in another millennia
                                            • 3 years ago
                                            • morsch 3 years ago
                                              Heinz Ketchup Cap: may have solved the problem of storing the bottle upside down, but it doesn't solve the problem of 3% of the product remaining in the container and being almost impossible to retrieve.

                                              Sriracha Bottle Cap: it's a fun design, but in my experience it tends to turn filthy, sticky and basically break. Kind of terrible, really.

                                              Vita Coco Bottle Cap: okay if it works, very annoying if it doesn't. The whole container is a recycling nightmare, fwiw.

                                              • orobinson 3 years ago
                                                Re the last 3% of ketchup, just cut the bottle in half and scrape the rest out with a spoon.
                                                • ballenf 3 years ago
                                                  Bonus is that your sliced finger blood won't mess up the look of the remaining ketchup.
                                                  • orobinson 3 years ago
                                                    Just be careful applying the same technique to squeeze mayonnaise bottles…
                                                • asiachick 3 years ago
                                                  swing it around with your arm as fast as possible, cap side out.
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                                                  • kkfx 3 years ago
                                                    The main packaging issue is the single-use target. In the past we have had a concept and an industry about recycling packages in various ways but to "simply" and "make things more efficient so profitable" we decide that a single-use solution is better.

                                                    That's was true in an age of raw material abundance where a light and disposable package means less transportation cost, simple infrastructures, less distributed human labor requirements etc. You can pack milk in a factory and directly ship it to stores where the only need is putting them on some supermarket shelf. In the past there is a need for glass bottles who are fragile and heavyweight, they need to be cleaned up, there is an industry to wash/recycle them, many stages in line etc...

                                                    The result of modern food packaging is that we are able to concentrate stuff, few big factories in exotic places, more products on shelves, cheaper product. However now we start seeing that such efficient move is not sustainable... I bet in the future we will came back somewhat, and such move will hurt MUCH...

                                                    • stickfigure 3 years ago
                                                      While this is technology is beautiful, I think it would be easier to visualize how these products work by looking at old-fashioned still pictures of their disassembled parts.
                                                      • systemvoltage 3 years ago
                                                        I agree. I think it is visually awesome but that's about it.
                                                        • 3 years ago
                                                        • brnt 3 years ago
                                                          And yet, I wish none of my packages had these, and would let me cut a corner off or stick to simple caps. I must have underdeveloped motor skills, but if there is one guaranteed thing to happen is that ketchup sprays everywhere, dosage caps get clogged and dry out, caps are placed such that I can't get all contents out, etc. etc.

                                                          For me, none of them work. And they often seem like an expensive component.

                                                          • collinthecorgi 3 years ago
                                                            My 2 cents is whatever design it is, packaging should be always serving 2 main purposes: User friendly and Environment friendly.
                                                            • mahastore 3 years ago
                                                              The planet dies everyday by our creations .. Yet we keep marveling at our creations everyday. Nothing changeth.
                                                              • ramraj07 3 years ago
                                                                That’s because none of us truly want to give up what we have gained. You’re still commenting on a website using a computer or a phone. The only way this will fix is after the planet is truly fully fucked, where no amount of money can protect you from that, then humanity will figure out whacko ways to fix it. Many if not most will suffer indescribably, for sure. But I see no other way this will play out.
                                                                • aldebran 3 years ago
                                                                  Some people do.

                                                                  1. Reduce plastic consumption as much as you can. 2. Use reusable bags 3. Choose packaging that contains less plastic. This is truly horrible in the US. Apple sauce containers for kids have so much unnecessary plastic. I mean the ones with the fancy caps that are big only to appeal to kids.

                                                                  And to reduce your carbon footprint further - controversial point incoming - reduce or stop eating meat.

                                                                  “But, aren’t you using a smartphone? Do you not buy X? Do you not use X? Do you drive? Do you travel? … All your points are therefore invalid“

                                                                  When I’m hungry and someone offers a slice of pizza I don’t say no if I can’t have the entire pie. I take the slice. Start with a step today then take another one tomorrow.

                                                                  Eventually there will be enough of us that we opt to tax companies at the source for using plastics unnecessarily or having a ridiculous carbon footprint. And May be we can have effective carbon capture technologies and better ways to deal with plastic.

                                                                  • simondotau 3 years ago
                                                                    Fascinatingly, single use plastic bags are so impossibly thin that you'd have to reuse a reusable bag more times than they're likely to last. I have not seen any data, but I'm willing to bet that our consumption of plastic has increased, with any reduction in single use plastic bags more than offset by an increase in "reusable" bags.

                                                                    If instead of normalising the use of reusable bags, we normalised soft plastics (LDPE) recycling, the planet would probably be in a better condition. A one cent tax per bag would probably be sufficient to pay for it.

                                                                    (And don't get me started about cotton. If you only focus on climate change, cotton isn't too bad. But if you zoom out to look at environmental impact, petroleum doesn't hold a candle to cotton for the devastation of natural habitat, water use, energy use, etc etc etc. One t-shirt or tote bag is likely more environmental impact than all of the soft plastics used by one person in a year.)

                                                                    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 3 years ago
                                                                      To that end, does anyone know a good way to deal with dog waste that doesn't involve plastic? I feel like sealing dog waste away in this nigh-indestructible container is a really stupid idea, but I haven't yet thought of a better way of picking the stuff up.
                                                                    • car_analogy 3 years ago
                                                                      > That’s because none of us truly want to give up what we have gained.

                                                                      Plenty of us do, but industry lobbying is so far stronger:

                                                                      https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/plastics-industry-contin...

                                                                      https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/government...

                                                                      • dd36 3 years ago
                                                                        It’s not an individual problem. It’s a collective action problem.
                                                                      • kortilla 3 years ago
                                                                        The planet’s “life” is a human creation as well. There have been several ELEs and the planet is still “alive”.
                                                                        • mellavora 3 years ago
                                                                          True, but I would kind of like it if my children and grandchildren had other vertebrates around.

                                                                          and a bonus if the planet can support great-grandchildren. At the moment, that is no longer a given.

                                                                          • kortilla 3 years ago
                                                                            Unless your concern is nuclear war, it’s absolutely a given that the planet can support great-grandchildren. The question is for how many and at what quality of life.

                                                                            There are no science-based projections of us not being able to support human life with a population of less than 100 million still in 200 years.

                                                                      • ada1981 3 years ago
                                                                        So curious about how they achieve the visuals on this.
                                                                        • 32kfjh23 3 years ago
                                                                          LottieFiles.
                                                                          • 32kfjh23 3 years ago
                                                                            it's a webflow site using lottiefiles gifs linked to your scroll position that choose what frame of the gif you're showing

                                                                            idk how they went from 3d data to those images, I'd imagine whatever scanning software they use exports a lot of frames

                                                                            and then you can put those frames together in something like after effects and just export a gif

                                                                            use wappalyzer extension to figure it technologies in the future

                                                                            • ed 3 years ago
                                                                              Sounds like there's a market for scanofthemonth.comofthemonth.com
                                                                          • whiterabbit797 3 years ago
                                                                            Possibly threeJs.
                                                                          • amelius 3 years ago
                                                                            > Every time you open the refrigerator, a heroic engineering effort looks back at you.

                                                                            Yeah but the biggest effort went into making it cheap.

                                                                            • declanjscott 3 years ago
                                                                              Second paragraph: “Behind each plastic bottle cap is a careful engineering process that balances cost, user experience, and manufacturability at massive scale.”
                                                                            • anotherboffin 3 years ago
                                                                              Pretty incredible work for stuff that’s just going to end up incinerated or in a landfill…
                                                                              • meghido10 3 years ago
                                                                                Am the only one seeing a 57 in the Heinz cap scan ?
                                                                              • susrev 3 years ago
                                                                                website broken for anyone else? "Loading Scan" forever
                                                                                • rathi2601 3 years ago
                                                                                  Amazing!
                                                                                  • tillcarlos 3 years ago
                                                                                    That’s a lot of effort being put into this website (not to speak of the scans themselves).

                                                                                    Does anyone know how they monetize this page? Or is it just a hobby project?

                                                                                    • mensetmanusman 3 years ago
                                                                                      Believe it is marketing for the tech.
                                                                                      • Teracotage 3 years ago
                                                                                        And to justify the prices, I paid more for a S. Korean glass jar that has a neat cap, than the price of the olive oil I stored in it.
                                                                                      • metal_am 3 years ago
                                                                                        I’m really wondering about this too. If it were an OEM or service provider, I would expect them to advertise the capabilities of their brand/company.
                                                                                        • ddingus 3 years ago
                                                                                          Content marketing for scanning tech.
                                                                                        • adewinter 3 years ago
                                                                                          It's weird that CT scans cost hundreds (thousands?) of dollars when used in medicine but at the airport everyone's baggage is routinely scanned for approx. $free.

                                                                                          Is the hardware and software needed for CT scans really that expensive or not?

                                                                                          • ramraj07 3 years ago
                                                                                            People are saying it’s not the same but counterpoint: An MRI scan in a state of the art facility in Chennai India in at least 50 different facilities costs 2000-4000 Rupees or $26. The machines cost the same if not more here due to import duties. Labor is cheap but these labs truly compete with each other and that’s what drives the price down. So please acknowledge that the healthcare system in the US and other places is broken.
                                                                                            • Semaphor 3 years ago
                                                                                              A pure CT Scan in Germany (paid for by public health insurance unless you do one for fun), without anything else (consultation, contrast materials, etc.) is billed 110-170 € (USD 120-190). Considering labor is more expensive here, that sounds comparable.
                                                                                              • bluedino 3 years ago
                                                                                                But what is the 'real cost'? Is it that much higher in Germany than the USA? What does the CT tech make, how much was the machine to buy, how expensive is the rent where the machine is installed, what are electricity costs...
                                                                                                • ornornor 3 years ago
                                                                                                  For contrast (pun!), Switzerland just across the border charges 6–7 times as much for the same thing. And medication too, it costs multiples more for the same medicine in CH than anywhere else in Europe just because.
                                                                                                • markdown 3 years ago
                                                                                                  > US and other places

                                                                                                  Is there really another "first-world" country on earth with healthcare broken like it is in the US?

                                                                                                  • mike256 3 years ago
                                                                                                    Here in Switzerland healthcare is pretty much broken when it comes to prices. Everything is pretty expensive. But is it broken like in the US? No way! Our healthcare works very well and its prices are okay ;-)
                                                                                                • _moof 3 years ago
                                                                                                  Airport baggage scanners are nowhere near the complexity of CT machines. Not even the same kind of device. They also don't have to be designed and certified for human subjects.
                                                                                                • metal_am 3 years ago
                                                                                                  Airport scanners are not CT. They will only give you one projection. I would also be willing to bet these CT machines can only scan a very small volume. Typically, they will rotate the sample, not the X-ray source and detector. I’d imagine some of the cost comes from being able to move the source and detector while keeping everything in alignment. (Disclaimer: My experience is secondhand with scanning metals)
                                                                                                  • twbarr 3 years ago
                                                                                                    The passenger checkpoint devices are projection imaging, but they do use CT (with rotating source/detector, just like a medical CT) for checked bags. https://www.envimet.com/en/product/examiner-xlb/
                                                                                                    • joshvm 3 years ago
                                                                                                      Newer ones are actually moving to CT. If you go through one of those security checkpoints, you don't need to take anything out of your bag. They were being used at some terminals at Heathrow - but confusingly not all. I think T2 has them, or at least were trialing them when I flew in September 2020. T5 definitely didn't in January.
                                                                                                      • habi 3 years ago
                                                                                                        Nitpicking detail; the standard belt-scanners don't give you 'one' projection, but have (most probably) a linear detector with a (nearly linear) x-ray source pointed at, so they give you a slit-scan image, which is not one projection, but a veeeeery long image :)
                                                                                                      • miketery 3 years ago
                                                                                                        I think it's several reasons. One more complicated machine. Two higher paid professionals. And finally healthcare is a racket in the US (cost to value wise).
                                                                                                        • bluedino 3 years ago
                                                                                                          I had a scan done a few months ago and marveled a bit at the machine. It was 20 years old but the room it was in was probably very expensive to build. There was a considerable amount of electrical power going to the room. And you can't just let a newbie run the machine. The liability alone of having a patient with a metal sliver in their eye or piercing still installed must be insane.
                                                                                                          • 3 years ago
                                                                                                            • Traubenfuchs 3 years ago
                                                                                                              A private full body cancer search MRT (the most expensive diagnostic I could find) costs 1340€ in Germany, many common use cases much less (340 for a joint).

                                                                                                              Naturally it‘s free if a doctor decides you need one.

                                                                                                              • gorgoiler 3 years ago
                                                                                                                Of the two applications you describe, one is a super serious life or death situation where a single mistake could harm human life.

                                                                                                                The other is an institutional monopoly that, while initially set up with lofty goals to save lives, has devolved into a suppressive tool that works against the common man.

                                                                                                                • mellavora 3 years ago
                                                                                                                  No, it is the wetware.
                                                                                                                  • ars 3 years ago
                                                                                                                    The air port has an x-ray machine, not a CT scanner. The CT has a ring the spins around the object making a 3d image - they don't have that at the airport.

                                                                                                                    X-rays are quite cheap in the medical world (reading them is where the cost is, not taking the x-ray).

                                                                                                                    • hallway_monitor 3 years ago
                                                                                                                      I suppose a CT is what I saw at the airport earlier this year then - maybe Houston? The technicians clearly had a 3d model and were manipulating it to view it from all angles.
                                                                                                                • fowkswe 3 years ago
                                                                                                                  Can someone please focus the same amount of energy that was put into making this visualization into figuring out how to abolish plastic in general?