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Comment by s_dev | Hacker News Reader

>You mean 'The Green Dot'?

Yup -- another business trick is in McDonalds -- the company that supplies the beef in Ireland is called "100% Irish Beef" and thus they put that on the packaging even if the beef doesn't come from Ireland.

I've seen this don't with the equivalent of "100% recyclable" as the name of the company to pass the product off as environmental.

However the main problem is still consumer knowledge of whats recyclable. If people think there is a small chance that something is recyclable they will throw it in the recycling bin -- this is the complete wrong approach. Put everything in the trash unless you're 100% sure it's recyclable. Otherwise you'll "contaminate" the whole batch like throwing a bad apple in on top of a barrel of good apples.

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> However the main problem is still consumer knowledge of whats recyclable.

Strongly disagree here. Expecting average consumers to know the difference between polypropylene, polyurethane and polystyrene etc..., just by looking at something, is beyond the pale. That doesn't even take into account bonded materials, like paper coffee cups lined with plastic.

The "main problem" is manufacturers / supermarkets using any kind of packaging that is not recyclable by default, and vague / ever shifting standards from one private waste company to the next on what can be recycled.

There should be a massive tax on using non-recyclable materials for ordinary packaging, and it should have a mandatory skull & crossbones style symbol to show that it is hazardous to the environment.

On a positive note, Ireland just pushed through legislation to accept all kinds of plastic in recycling bins this week: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/household-recycl...

I strongly feel that governments should intervene and mandate a limited subset of plastics - including colouration - that can be used for food and beverage packaging, etc.

My bottle of sparkling water doesn't really need a green top. The bottle itself doesn't really need to be a light colour tint.

Put branding on paper labels, or better yet - go monochrome and laser-etch/mark everything. Have QR codes on bottles that can have fancy interactive digital marketing/advertising/information.

I'd rather not be a scan+network request away from knowing which flavour of drink I'm holding.

The QR code would just facilitate all the fancy branding shite beloved of marketing departments. Obviously you'd still have all the essential details marked on the product directly.

Lasers can be used to put words into your ears, read your heartrate and listen to your conversations from miles out...

and you're concerned about people knowing your favorite sugar?

That would make it so no one can introduce a better plastic

Pharmaceutical companies still introduce new medications. They just need to submit documents/applications to the relevant government authorities. The same could be done with packaging when trying to introduce a new type.

great, super easy for regulatory capture. Just bribe the inspector to not approve your competitors.

The "main problem" is manufacturers / supermarkets using any kind of packaging that is not recyclable by default

Packaging should be biodegradable by default. Assume that it's going to end up in the ocean, or the woods next to the highway, and we don't want it to be there in 1000 years.

> Consumer knowledge of what's recyclable

There's also a huge disconnect between what's actually recyclable across California cities, unfortunately.

As far as I know San Francisco recycles clean plastic food containers, plastic cups, plastic plates, and utensils [0], but backwards Mountain View specifically does NOT recycle utensils [1], black-colored containers [2], and fruit containers [2].

[0] https://www.recology.com/recology-san-francisco/your-three-c...

[1] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...

[2] https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/pw/recycling_and_zero_was...

> Yup -- another business trick is in McDonalds -- the company that supplies the beef in Ireland is called "100% Irish Beef" and thus they put that on the packaging even if the beef doesn't come from Ireland.

This isn't true, it's an urban myth. The original myth was actually that a company called "100% beef" was a company owned by McDonalds, and this is simply a variant. See: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18916-is-beef-a-...

McDonalds Sourcing Statement - "We work with over 23,000 British and Irish farmers to source our ingredients. Our beef, eggs and milk all come from UK farms."

> I've seen this don't with the equivalent of "100% recyclable" as the name of the company to pass the product off as environmental.

Can you give a source for a company using this? I can't find anything about it online and suspect it's just an urban myth like the first one.

I'm not sure this is true. I've previously heard the exact same thing referring about "100% beef" in the US, but mcdonalds explicitly says on their website that it isn't true [0], which I assume they wouldn't do if it actually were true. I can't find anything about "100% irish beef" , but I kind of doubt it's true unless you can find some source talking about it.

[0]: https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18916-is-beef-a-...

Yeah, exactly. The recycling trucks here in LDN have a campaign on the side of them that has words to the effect of "if you're unsure - leave it out!" because as you say, even partial contamination screws entire bales of reclaimed material.

My eternal bugbear is Pizza boxes. Used greasy pizza boxes can often be recycled in many municipalities, BUT only in the organic or food waste. Greasy card in the paper recycling stream screws everything up.

I used to live in a fairly large warehouse community and 'made myself responsible for the recycling', so I have greyer hair than I should and a slighly less shallow awareness than many people of the problems in all this... :\

What you say, plus occasional reminder to wash your recycleables before throwing them into the bin, is why I consider the whole recycling scheme to be worthless distraction.

Nobody in their right mind has the time and space to properly sort and clean the trash. For the rest, inefficient use of water and detergent has an environmental cost too.

This stuff should be all handled by a combination of centralized work at sorting plants and alterations to packaging. Containers can be cleaned more efficiently in a centralized location, and as for the pizza boxes, perhaps it should be mandated that pizza boxes must be fully lined with aluminum foil on the inside - this would be a win for both recycling and product quality, as the pizza would stay warm for longer.

If you wash up manually in a bowl, you can use the remnant liquid to do your recyclable washing before pouring it down the sink, but .. well, as you suggest "I ain't got no time for that".

As for your pizza box idea, I'm not sure that's not simply complicating things - now you'd have two independently-recyclable materials tha most consumers will simply leave together and dump in the box, leaving you with sorting problems, and oil going from foil to card anyway.

Also, I think the quality of the pizza might be impacted - my gut thinks that a pizza that's allowed to release some of its heat/grease into card makes it less squidgy and sweaty than one left to sit on foil. I haven't researched this though! :)

I mean, for crissakes - a neighbour in my block thinks that actual pizza crusts and leftovers are recyclable.

People!

I've heard that Pringles tubes (foil lined cardboard with plastic lids) are a bit of a recycling nightmare for that reason.

Yep, which brings us full circle here, as Pringles tubes prominently display that bloody Green Dot logo. My partner likes the occasional Pringle, and she keeps putting the used packaging in the recycling.

Drives me nuts!

> I mean, for crissakes - a neighbour in my block thinks that actual pizza crusts and leftovers are recyclable.

Live in an apartment and oh the things people throw into the recycling dumpster. Plants, chairs, mattresses, clothes, you name it. People toss it into the recycle.

I honestly would not be surprised if 10% of what gets tossed into that bin actually gets properly recycled.

> Nobody in their right mind has the time and space to properly sort and clean the trash.

How do folks have time to clean their glasses but don’t have time to wash a milk bottle or whatever? It takes like 15 seconds…

> How do folks have time to clean their glasses

They don't. They put it in a dishwasher.

> It takes like 15 seconds…

Not counting setup and cleanup times afterwards. Given the two are large enough and most packaging isn't dishwasher safe, it makes sense to clean a bunch of trash in one run, which requires having space for extra trash containers at home...

Wait people batch clean their recyclables? That seems more time intensive since the food is going to dry/harden. It’s much quicker to wash when everything is still wet.

15 seconds isn't worth it.

Japan, or certain cities in Japan, have pretty complex recycling rules, at least relative to California.

You're required to separate glass, PET plastic, other plastic, aluminium, clean paper (books, magazines, newspaper), burnables (food, soiled paper), unburnables, and then also large items and electronics require extra fee and an appointment.

Further, it's arguably part of the culture to clean your trash. This is probably because burnables are collected twice a week, unburnables once a week, recyclables once a week, and, if you live in an small apartment complex, of which here are many, there is no place to put the trash. You're required to store it in your apartment until the day of collection, which means if you don't clean it it will stink up your apartment.

So, people do have time or make time.

But, I 100% agree with you that this stuff should be handled by the trash companies. They could do it much more efficiently. They can do it correctly. Having it done in a few locations is also much easier to monitor, regulate, enforce.

Interesting to come across the word “bugbear” — would you mind sharing which part of the world you are posting from? I’m not sure if I’ve heard that word before.

Edit: is LDN London?

My apologies! Yes - from the UK, and LDN is short for London.

I've somehow gotten myself into the habit of using that shortcode over the past few years. I should really stop - the energy saved from not using three characters isn't really worthwhile :)

They could be posting from the Forgotten Realms part of their imagination. It’s a Dungeons & Dragons setting where Bugbears are abundant.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/bugbear

Is that actually true? According to [1], McDonalds (in 2020) was buying EUR160e6 worth of Irish beef accounting for 20% of its beef sales across Europe. It would make quite a loss for them if they shipped beef into Ireland while buying that much locally and exporting it. I can't find anything that mentions this "100% Irish beef" theory.

[1] https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0323/1124769-corona...

> EUR160e6

Deliberately obtuse way to write €160 million. Why write that like?

Because people near Ireland use an obtuse definition of million/billion. Engineering notation is precise and unambiguous.

I'm just curious what 160 million Euro would mean in Ireland. Can you explain, please?

I think "1 million" means 1e6 everywhere. But the confusion might be because "1 billion" means 1e9 in USA but 1e12 in UK/Ireland. "1 trillion" similarly is 1e12 in USA but 1e18 in UK/Ireland. This is called the short/long scales. It's a headache.

I knew billion was different, but the commenter mentioned million specifically as having a different meaning.

Nonsense.

> The meaning of the word "million" is common to the short scale and long scale

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,000,000

If you're going to use the scientific notation for billions, you should just use it for everything. I don't think it's so obtuse anyway, it's exactly how I'd spell that number in code.

Arguably, the short scale, not the long scale used in Ireland is obtuse. 12 zeroes for billion and 18 zeroes for trillion, 24 for quadrillion etc is 6n where n is numerical value of Latin prefix, with short scale you've got 3n+3

that's not true: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-100-beef/

I'm not sure that's the same problem. I think Parent means that beef from elsewhere arrives in Ireland, is processed there and becomes 'Irish beef', which is clearly a bit of a stretch of the truth.

It's the same in Europe with many types of olive oil - much of it is grown and extracted in Iberia, but then sent to Italy, etc, for processing, becoming 'Italian' olive oil..

Doesn't bother me though - my favourite olive oil comes from Spain...

Yeah I'm not disputing the general point that some people would do something like that. But the specific claim about a company called "100% Irish Beef" sounded a bit outlandish, so I googled it.

> I'm not sure that's the same problem. I think Parent means that beef from elsewhere arrives in Ireland, is processed there and becomes 'Irish beef', which is clearly a bit of a stretch of the truth.

The problem is that it isn't true - the 100% British & Irish beef is actually beef from Britain & Ireland. It's a myth that it's the company name.

English & Irish law on the country of origin of products is pretty strong and certinally does not allow processed beef from other countries to be labelled/marketed as British. Also a 5 minute google search shows this is just simply an urban legend.

I can't respond to your response to my response (!). but clearly I misread parent's post. d'oh.

As you were!

Yea, I'm going to call bullshit on that. "100% Irish Beef" is a marketing slogan by Irish beef producers to signify that all of their beef comes from Ireland.

> another business trick is in McDonalds -- the company that supplies the beef in Ireland is called "100% Irish Beef"

This is definitely not true. And it's a common myth in Canada as well.

> If people think there is a small chance that something is recyclable they will throw it in the recycling bin -- this is the complete wrong approach. Put everything in the trash unless you're 100% sure it's recyclable.

I disagree with this, there are some municipalities that will fine you for putting recycling in the regular trash.

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