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Comment by oppositelock | Hacker News Reader

I've had the pleasure (joking here) of living in some very poor countries, and people there waste little. Why waste a perfectly good glass or plastic bottle by throwing it away, instead of refilling?

Generally, when the cost of a bottle or bag is statistically significant, people care for them. Stores sell more bulk stuff, refill bottles, and offer little in the way of their own packaging. It's all a lot less convenient.

In the US, various bulk stores have tried to introduce the packaging reuse notion, but all have gone out of business because we take convenience over reuse.

This will only change when reuse is equally convenient. If I knew how to accomplish that, I wouldn't be pontificating here, but running my own business doing just that.

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I would love to see Amazon take the lead on this. They should be in a great position to do so as they move to doing more of their own distribution. Ditch the cardboard boxes and bubble envelopes and replace them with reusable bins and pouches that are picked up when the next order is delivered. (And to start with, at least get rid of those horrible bubble mailers that can't even be recycled, and replace them with an all-paper padded envelope...)

Amazon did this for Amazon Fresh grocery delivery back when it was just in Seattle (and then in LA). Unattended deliveries, meaning left on your front porch, came in reusable bags and hard-sided plastic containers.

Ever since they ruined Fresh by just lumping it in with Prime Now deliveries, most items come in disposable paper bags with disposable insulation inserts for frozen stuff.

Tesco in the UK (and I guess other supermarkets but I haven’t used them) give you the option of choosing not to have you groceries delivered in plastic bags. In that case they deliver them in the same reusable plastic trays they use internally. You give them back when you have you next delivery - or keep them for storing your junk as they are stackable and very durable.

The delivery vans have doors at the side with rows of shelves that these trays fit onto, so it’s a lot better protected than a parcel thrown into the back of a van.

Picture: http://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Sa...

'Tesco in the UK ... give you the option of choosing not to have you groceries delivered in plastic bags.'

But the benefit has to be offset by those who choose to have bags because you get 10 times as many bags as you would if doing the packing yourself.

Not sure of the exact cost but there is a flat charge so it is the same for 1 bag or 100.

Doesn’t the bag charge apply to delivered groceries?

It does but you don't pay 5p per bag as you do in store, you pay something like 40p regardless of how many bags are used.

'Without bags' isn't always practical with some homes where there is restricted access.

In the UK, back in the 70's we had a deposit scheme for glass bottles. And if you couldn't be bothered taking your bottles back to the store for a few pennies each you could be sure some local kid would be more than happy to do it for you.

Uh, you don't have one now? In Finland the vast majority of glass or plastic beverage bottles and aluminum cans are under a national deposit system.

Not that I know of no. I have heard about the scheme in Northern Europe and it makes a lot of sense.

I think the introduction of plastic bottles and paper cartons was the initial reason for dropping it? Back then recycling was purely a direct cost/benefit thing rather than for environmental reasons.

I was going to post that the US does this, but more correctly some states do this. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislatio...

The one place I've seen this work was in regards to dairy products bottled in thick, reusable glass containers. The supermarket would charge something like a $2 deposit refundable upon return of the used bottle.

When I was a kid there was a Pop Shoppe store by my house that sold different flavors of soda pop in thick little glass bottles. You'd grab a crate, fill it up with whatever mix of flavors struck your fancy, and pay a deposit for the bottles. When you'd drank them all you brought your crate of empty bottles back for a refill.

Seemed like a pretty good idea to me. It went out of business, though, I think because people wanted Pepsi and Coke brands.

> It went out of business, though, I think because people wanted Pepsi and Coke brands.

Nothing stops the Pop Shoppe from dispensing Pepsi and Coke brands any more than it stops the local pizza place from dispensing Coke brand Coke from the soda fountain.

There probably IS some sort of licensing agreement preventing that, else they would have.

Restaurants and clubs have soda fountains letting customers fill themselves unlimited soda.

Surely, the license is not an obstacle since it's already being done.

The parent company of the Pop Shoppe made soda. I would be surprised if they allowed franchisees to use other suppliers.

When I was a kid (in the 1960's), milk bottles were re-used. We left the empty bottles on the front porch. The milkman (from Alexandria Dairy, if you lived in NoVa like me) came around very early in the morning and exchanged the empty bottles for filled ones. There was a little ice box (literally) by the front door that kept the milk cold. This service stopped in the mid 70s.

I mail order most things. While that saves on pollution from fuel, tires, etc., the amount of packaging material that gets discarded is depressing.

I particularly loathe styrofoam peanuts and bubblewrap. Those should just be banned (or taxed heavily!). Use cardboard. There ought to be a way to "foam" paper to substitute for styrofoam peanuts. Then the stuff just disintegrates on its own after a while.

Maybe go back to waxed/oiled paper instead of plastic, too.

Lately, I've noticed a lot more starch peanuts being used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_peanut#Starch-based_packi...

We just need some leadership(!) from central government to enforce widespread adoption of biodegradable packing materials.

I don't get styrofoam or bubblewrap in Amazon packages. Just those "bubble pads" that I have to deflate to dispose of.

>In the US, various bulk stores have tried to introduce the packaging reuse notion, but all have gone out of business because we take convenience over reuse.

It's not just that. Stores in the US don't trust their customers enough to move away from bulky packaging that takes forever to open.

> This will only change when reuse is equally convenient. If I knew how to accomplish that, I wouldn't be pontificating here, but running my own business doing just that.

Pretty straight-forward really. Increase the cost of once-off convenience. If it costs more to do it the dirty way, people will do it the clean way. But in america, they'll just vote in people that will dig a bigger hole. Probably in what used to be park-land.

> But in america, they'll just vote in people that will dig a bigger hole. Probably in what used to be park-land.

Placing the blame entirely on idiot consumers isn't the best either. Where are the fortunate people in society who not just educating but also leading by example?

Elon Musk is the only person of importance I can think of that is actually putting their money where their mouth is to make the world a better place.

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