New ethical plastic free supermarket

[MHS]

Saw this place on local news the other day. It’s near Bordesley Junction, so we will be having a look soon. 

It looks really well set up and reminds me of when I was a kid. My dad took sherry bottles and his soda siphon down to the off licence for refills.  

 

https://www.thecleankilo.co.uk/

[Athy]

f it is so ethical, why does it have a "self-checkout", an iniquitous device which deprives someone of a job? I never use such installations in a supermarket on principle.

[MHS]

6 minutes ago, Athy said:

f it is so ethical, why does it have a "self-checkout", an iniquitous device which deprives someone of a job? I never use such installations in a supermarket on principle.

I think it’s just weigh it yourself, the bbc clip showed a staff member on the till. At least they are making a start at improving things. 

[blackrose]

Everyone is worried about packaging waste and especially plastics. Developments to reduce packaging and improve recycling rates have been underway for some time but it's not quick or easy. Meanwhile nobody is talking about the environmental benefits of lightweight plastic packaging in terms of reduced food waste which is a much bigger environmental issue. Much more energy and resources go into food production than packaging production, so if the food doesn't get through the supply chain to the final consumer intact then that's a real problem.

When using alternative materials or reducing packaging you need to ensure you're maintaining the same level of physical protection and barrier properties so that product shelf-life isn't reduced. Otherwise those efforts may just result in a much bigger environmental issue - food waste.

David Attenborough, the media and the public are focusing on plastics in the environment, but who's actually allowing those items to become water-borne? We tend to blame those people putting the packaging into the market and they do have a responsibility, but ultimately in developed countries like the UK it's consumers not the producers who.are responsible for litter. It's a different situation in developing countries and studies have shown that something like 80% of all plastic waste at sea is coming from just 6 countries and 10 rivers (in East Asia and Africa) where consumerism has increased without the necessary improvements in waste management infrastructure. However in this country, the bottom line is that unless you're the one chucking your empty PET coke bottle into a river it's unlikely to end up at sea and unfortunately the efforts that some people are making to reduce their use of plastics, while well-meaning may be slightly misguided. 

http://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-from-just-10-rivers/a-41581484

Edited June 24, 2018 by blackrose

[cuthound]

A lot of the plastic waste in the oceans must come from the increasingly popular  cruise ships, who dump all their waste overboard.

[Stilllearning]

4 hours ago, MHS said:

I think it’s just weigh it yourself, the bbc clip showed a staff member on the till. At least they are making a start at improving things. 

Weigh it yourself is a really good system that is commonly in use over here. It enables one to have just as much or as little of a product as one needs, and helps speed up the checkouts.

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, cuthound said:

A lot of the plastic waste in the oceans must come from the increasingly popular  cruise ships, who dump all their waste overboard.

Is there evidence of this?  I have never been on a cruise and don't intend to but all ferries I have been on ( 5 or 6 this year ) all have a "nothing over board" policy.

[john6767]

1 hour ago, cuthound said:

A lot of the plastic waste in the oceans must come from the increasingly popular  cruise ships, who dump all their waste overboard.

Are you really certain about that?

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Is there evidence of this?  I have never been on a cruise and don't intend to but all ferries I have been on ( 5 or 6 this year ) all have a "nothing over board" policy.

Well all I know is all my plastic at home goes in our blue recycling bin. If after that it ends up in the ocean what else can I do?

 

Take it personally to a recycling centre and witness it being recycled?

 

Yes we can use less plastic but the bottom line line is mine is disposed of responsibly and it's quite hard to impossible to buy stuff not encased in the stuff.

 

So where is it coming from?

[Chewbacka]

When I was a kid - many years ago - there was no plastic packaging and no food waste, so it can be done.

[cuthound]

11 minutes ago, john6767 said:

Are you really certain about that?

 

My parents are frequent cruisers (my father is a musician who plays in the bands of them), and he has told me that he has often observed them discharging all their waste food, packing and black tank contents directly into the sea once out of port. 

Edited June 24, 2018 by cuthound
Spillung

[Jerra]

1 minute ago, Chewbacka said:

When I was a kid - many years ago - there was no plastic packaging and no food waste, so it can be done.

My daughter (living in Edinburgh) has virtually no packaging.  Her butcher puts her meat into the plastic boxes she takes, same with fish etc.  Veg she buys lose and doesn't bag etc.  About he only packaging she has is bread wrappers when she doesn't make her own.  It can be done.

 

The point about plastic is not to stop using it but to ensure all plastic is recyclable (not up to the individual) and that all (well ok as much as possible) is recycled.

[Chewbacka]

1 minute ago, Jerra said:

My daughter (living in Edinburgh) has virtually no packaging.  Her butcher puts her meat into the plastic boxes she takes, same with fish etc.  Veg she buys lose and doesn't bag etc.  About he only packaging she has is bread wrappers when she doesn't make her own.  It can be done.

 

The point about plastic is not to stop using it but to ensure all plastic is recyclable (not up to the individual) and that all (well ok as much as possible) is recycled.

yep and bread should come in paper which will naturally degrade if not recycled.

[john6767]

5 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

My parents are frequent cruisers (my father is a musician who plays in the bands of them), and he has told me that he has often observed them discharging all their waste food, packing and black tank contents directly into the sea once out of port. 

Fair enough, it surprises me given how they make a big play of that fact that nothing goes into the sea and you should not throw anything overboard.

[Jerra]

9 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

yep and bread should come in paper which will naturally degrade if not recycled.

It was waxed paper when I was a kid, well for sliced loaves un sliced were just popped in a paper bag (as they still are in many places).

[blackrose]

3 hours ago, cuthound said:

A lot of the plastic waste in the oceans must come from the increasingly popular  cruise ships, who dump all their waste overboard.

A lot? What proportion are we talking about? I imagine it's a very small % of the total.

 

Which operators are doing it?

1 hour ago, MJG said:

Well all I know is all my plastic at home goes in our blue recycling bin. If after that it ends up in the ocean what else can I do?

 

Take it personally to a recycling centre and witness it being recycled?

 

Yes we can use less plastic but the bottom line line is mine is disposed of responsibly and it's quite hard to impossible to buy stuff not encased in the stuff.

 

So where is it coming from?

See Post 4

[blackrose]

1 hour ago, Chewbacka said:

When I was a kid - many years ago - there was no plastic packaging and no food waste, so it can be done.

No, there has always been a lot of food waste. Maybe not at your house, but before food was properly packaged and transported there was a lot of waste of harvested crops which couldn't be packed before it went bad. The increase pre-packaged food for the consumer and plastics packaging in particular has come about as a result of the consumer society, demographic changes in which people live in smaller units, etc. We can argue about whether the food industry has merely responded to these changes or been instrumental in exacerbating them, but then we're not really talking about changes in packaging materials per se, but about whether we need a social revolution.

1 hour ago, cuthound said:

 

My parents are frequent cruisers (my father is a musician who plays in the bands of them), and he has told me that he has often observed them discharging all their waste food, packing and black tank contents directly into the sea once out of port. 

Do they make complaints about this practice?

1 hour ago, Jerra said:

My daughter (living in Edinburgh) has virtually no packaging.  Her butcher puts her meat into the plastic boxes she takes, same with fish etc.  Veg she buys lose and doesn't bag etc.  About he only packaging she has is bread wrappers when she doesn't make her own.  It can be done.

 

Like this you mean?

 

Edited June 24, 2018 by blackrose

[blackrose]

1 hour ago, Jerra said:

 

The point about plastic is not to stop using it but to ensure all plastic is recyclable (not up to the individual) and that all (well ok as much as possible) is recycled.

Agreed

1 hour ago, Chewbacka said:

yep and bread should come in paper which will naturally degrade if not recycled.

http://www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html

 

And where should the paper bags be composted? They could be home composted assuming people have gardens, but in the UK the Animal By-products Order is still in force following the last foot and mouth outbreak in 2000. The prohibits packaging which has been in contact with food from being composted in open windrows and instead it must be composted within in-vessel systems of which there are relatively few in this country and certainly not enough to deal with all the biodegradable packaging waste including paper. 

 

The other thing is that if biodegradable waste ends up in landfill where space is scarce it gets compacted and could potentially degrade anaerobically producing methane. Methane (CH4) has approximately 25 x the GWP (global warming potential) of CO2. So degradable materials in landfill can end up being an environmental negative.

 

Also if consumers mistakenly believe that their packaging will degrade in any environment we might actually see an increase in littering.

 

Unfortunately packaging and the environment is a complex business and most people would rather just have simple answers.

Edited June 24, 2018 by blackrose

[mayalld]

2 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

My parents are frequent cruisers (my father is a musician who plays in the bands of them), and he has told me that he has often observed them discharging all their waste food, packing and black tank contents directly into the sea once out of port. 

Whilst he may well have observed it, that is not what should happen.

 

I've done a cruise or two, and I see them offloading waste in port, and if a cruise line is caught out breaking MARPOL rules (or the industry code of practice, which is stricter) the fines and reputational damage is huge. Princess Cruises were fines £32m for an illegal discharge a couple of years ago

 

Under MARPOL, it is an offence to discharge;

* Any waste at all within 3nm of land

* Untreated Sewage and food waste within 12 nm of land

* Plastics anywhere

 

Whilst untreated sewage CAN be discharged when 12nm from land, all the major cruise lines have signed up to a code of practice to only discharge treated sewage, and all cruise ships have an "Environmental Officer", who is responsible for ensuring compliance.

 

 

[cuthound]

11 hours ago, blackrose said:

A lot? What proportion are we talking about? I imagine it's a very small % of the total.

 

Which operators are doing it?

See Post 4

 

Certainly Cunard did with the QE2, soon after it was decommissioned my father transferred to playing on the European river cruisers, who don't discharge waste overboard.

 

The latest cruise liners can carry over 6,000 passengers.

 

He didn't report it because band members are sub-sub-contractors and he did t want to jeopardise his and others jobs.

 

9 hours ago, mayalld said:

Whilst he may well have observed it, that is not what should happen.

 

I've done a cruise or two, and I see them offloading waste in port, and if a cruise line is caught out breaking MARPOL rules (or the industry code of practice, which is stricter) the fines and reputational damage is huge. Princess Cruises were fines £32m for an illegal discharge a couple of years ago

 

Under MARPOL, it is an offence to discharge;

* Any waste at all within 3nm of land

* Untreated Sewage and food waste within 12 nm of land

* Plastics anywhere

 

Whilst untreated sewage CAN be discharged when 12nm from land, all the major cruise lines have signed up to a code of practice to only discharge treated sewage, and all cruise ships have an "Environmental Officer", who is responsible for ensuring compliance.

 

 

 

Perhaps things have improved with the latest concerns regarding polluting oceans with plastic?

 

However who independently monitors the Environmental Officer? It is almost impossible to police when in the middle of the ocean. 

Edited June 25, 2018 by cuthound

[Athy]

12 hours ago, Jerra said:

It was waxed paper when I was a kid, well for sliced loaves un sliced were just popped in a paper bag (as they still are in many places).

...not to mention (though I shall) crisps which came in a paper bag.

Such bags need not be composted - you can light your fire with them.

[doratheexplorer]

20 hours ago, Athy said:

f it is so ethical, why does it have a "self-checkout", an iniquitous device which deprives someone of a job? I never use such installations in a supermarket on principle.

Self-checkouts are not in principle unethical.  If it means that the supermaket is now more profitable then the total GDP for the country has gone up slightly, which means there is slightly more money for us all to share.  This could mean that the welfare state is strengthened or could help towards the implementation of a universal basic income for all citizens.  This would mean that the person who used to be sat on a till all day every day can now, more easily, pursue their dreams.  That would be a good thing.

 

Of course, that's not what happens.  The self checkout is there to increase the profits of the supermarkets and the dividends of the shareholders. 

 

Ideally, we would have both self-checkouts and a government which actually had the interests of the whole population at its heart.

 

Over the next decade, it's likely that entire industries will shed their workforce.  Logistics and haulage for example.  This won't mean that there's less money floating around for us all to share.  So it means a massive opportunity exists to release millions of people from drudgery.

 

In the past when similar changes in workforce have occurred, the result was that new jobs and industrys were invented to keep everyone busy - hence call-centres.  I sadly expect that the same will happen this time.

Edited June 25, 2018 by doratheexplorer

[Jerra]

14 hours ago, blackrose said:

And where should the paper bags be composted? They could be home composted assuming people have gardens, but in the UK the Animal By-products Order is still in force following the last foot and mouth outbreak in 2000. The prohibits packaging which has been in contact with food from being composted in open windrows and instead it must be composted within in-vessel systems of which there are relatively few in this country and certainly not enough to deal with all the biodegradable packaging waste including paper. 

There must be ways.  I have just spent a month in Scotland.  In Edinburgh the road side bins take mixed paper packaging along with bottles etc so they must be able to sort the mix and compost the parts process the paper/thin card.

 

When on the islands the system was simple if it was organic it went in one bin.  Lewis must have some way of dealing with that they surely aren't shipping it to the mainland for processing.

[phantom_iv]

On 24/06/2018 at 12:59, Athy said:

f it is so ethical, why does it have a "self-checkout", an iniquitous device which deprives someone of a job? I never use such installations in a supermarket on principle.

But what about all the jobs create developing / manufacturing / installing / maintaining these self-checkouts? I make sure to use them so I keep all these people in jobs. And generally much better jobs than waving something in front of a machine that goes 'beep'.

[Athy]

11 minutes ago, phantom_iv said:

But what about all the jobs create developing / manufacturing / installing / maintaining these self-checkouts? I make sure to use them so I keep all these people in jobs. And generally much better jobs than waving something in front of a machine that goes 'beep'.

And so, between the two of them, they licked the platter clean.