Costco Raises Food Court Prices

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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by mbz321 »

HCal wrote: July 21st, 2022, 2:37 pm
China does have a secret technology: people willing to work for $3 an hour. Unless we have that in the US, it's probably not going to work here.
Don't forget lax environmental regulations as well. Recycling is a dirty process in general, but especially when it comes to plastics.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by jamcool »

Glass is heavier than plastic-meaning a truck full of glass bottles uses more fuel than one with plastic/aluminum containers. Plus the energy and chemicals required to wash/reuse glass containers.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: July 21st, 2022, 2:37 pm
BillyGr wrote: July 19th, 2022, 11:39 am Then there is a very simple solution - do whatever was being done with these items in China RIGHT HERE IN THE USA!!!

Seems highly unlikely that China has some secret technology that the US doesn't know about - so if they could do it over there, it could be done here as well.
China does have a secret technology: people willing to work for $3 an hour. Unless we have that in the US, it's probably not going to work here.

Either the taxpayers would have to pay for massive recycling plants, or it would be passed on to consumers and plastic would become unaffordable.

Recycling plastic is not feasible. We need to understand that and stop throwing money at it.
Given the excessive costs of the alternative products, that multiple of the alternative products are just "thicker plastic" anyway or switching unregulated items to plastic that were previously made of other materials (like paper) and shifting items that are now regulated and can't be plastic and now paper, it feels like the current regulations are doing what you are saying- passing costs onto the consumer.

Plastic isn't going anywhere. Look at everything. It is all plastic. Look at a car now vs. in the past and how much more of a car is plastic than it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago when they were heavier and more metal. Current politicians are pushing various standards to cut vehicle emissions- one of the things that helps that is lighter weight vehicles- how do you think you get the vehicle to be lighter weight? You include more plastic in the build. Plastic waste is only going to increase.

And that is why the recycling needs to be forced. The plastic isn't going away. All it is doing is moving around. Accept it. And stop pushing for alternatives that cause more plastic to be used. Industry will sort out the "using less plastic" part- they will do what is cheapest for them. And it is cheaper to use less of something than use more of something. These regulations that actually cause more plastic use play right into the plastics industry's pocket and harm the environment more, and when consumers complain about excessive costs the business response is well sorry that is what the regulation says we have to do.

So basically you let industry do what it does best- be efficient and make the "lightest" products possible, then force the recycling. Period. At this point you are complaining that recycling costs too much yet you have no problem with regulations that ban lightweight plastics and force thicker plastics that are far costlier to the consumer? Wouldn't that money be better put toward recycling than toward even thicker plastic? All those plastic bottles and containers in stores, multiple states have a fee system for bottle return and other states have the single stream recycling. Force the bottles to be recycled and contain percentage of recycled content that is well above 50%. The plastic bags I see plastic bags all the time with 20-80% recycled content so again it is possible to make those from recycled materials too. Various other things, we have heard, even park benches, made out of recycled plastic. Grocery shopping carts made out of recycled plastic milk jugs. You are lying when you claim the recycling doesn't work. That is a complete lie. It simply is not allowed to work when the oil price is so low that it is cheaper to just make new plastic. So you pass the regulation and force the recycling to work. If this is really such an issue.

I don't think it is an issue and I think you anti-plastic folks are unknowlingly just being played by the plastic industry because the regulations you promote simply cause more plastic to be used than before there was any regulation.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by storewanderer »

mbz321 wrote: July 21st, 2022, 6:58 pm

Don't forget lax environmental regulations as well. Recycling is a dirty process in general, but especially when it comes to plastics.
Actually China has had many of these consumer level plastics restrictions (like bag bans, straw bans, etc.) for well over a decade. And you can see the results...

Recycling, trash handling, composting, processing of reusable containers/bags/packaging - it is all a dirty process. It doesn't matter what material you are dealing with. Waste disposal is a dirty process.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by HCal »

storewanderer wrote: July 21st, 2022, 10:03 pm Given the excessive costs of the alternative products, that multiple of the alternative products are just "thicker plastic" anyway or switching unregulated items to plastic that were previously made of other materials (like paper) and shifting items that are now regulated and can't be plastic and now paper, it feels like the current regulations are doing what you are saying- passing costs onto the consumer.

Plastic isn't going anywhere. Look at everything. It is all plastic. Look at a car now vs. in the past and how much more of a car is plastic than it was 20, 30, or 40 years ago when they were heavier and more metal. Current politicians are pushing various standards to cut vehicle emissions- one of the things that helps that is lighter weight vehicles- how do you think you get the vehicle to be lighter weight? You include more plastic in the build. Plastic waste is only going to increase.

And that is why the recycling needs to be forced. The plastic isn't going away. All it is doing is moving around. Accept it. And stop pushing for alternatives that cause more plastic to be used. Industry will sort out the "using less plastic" part- they will do what is cheapest for them. And it is cheaper to use less of something than use more of something. These regulations that actually cause more plastic use play right into the plastics industry's pocket and harm the environment more, and when consumers complain about excessive costs the business response is well sorry that is what the regulation says we have to do.

So basically you let industry do what it does best- be efficient and make the "lightest" products possible, then force the recycling. Period. At this point you are complaining that recycling costs too much yet you have no problem with regulations that ban lightweight plastics and force thicker plastics that are far costlier to the consumer? Wouldn't that money be better put toward recycling than toward even thicker plastic? All those plastic bottles and containers in stores, multiple states have a fee system for bottle return and other states have the single stream recycling. Force the bottles to be recycled and contain percentage of recycled content that is well above 50%. The plastic bags I see plastic bags all the time with 20-80% recycled content so again it is possible to make those from recycled materials too. Various other things, we have heard, even park benches, made out of recycled plastic. Grocery shopping carts made out of recycled plastic milk jugs. You are lying when you claim the recycling doesn't work. That is a complete lie. It simply is not allowed to work when the oil price is so low that it is cheaper to just make new plastic. So you pass the regulation and force the recycling to work. If this is really such an issue.

I don't think it is an issue and I think you anti-plastic folks are unknowlingly just being played by the plastic industry because the regulations you promote simply cause more plastic to be used than before there was any regulation.
I know that some of the regulations have backfired, but that is mostly because of meddling by the industry. California really should have just banned plastic bags outright, regardless of thickness. But of course, the plastic industry started lobbying, and legislators decided to allow the thicker bags as a "compromise" in order to appease them.

Plastic is everywhere, but that doesn't mean we just throw our hands in the air and stop trying to get a handle on it. In waste management, the hierarchy is reduce, then reuse, and finally recycle. The examples you mentioned, like recycled park benches and shopping carts, are mostly novelty items that aren't produced on any significant scale, precisely because it is not economically feasible. Collectively, between government and industry, we have now spent probably hundreds of billions of dollars on trying to figure out how to recycle plastic, and recyling rates are still in the single digits. What more can we do to "force" it?
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by storewanderer »

You force the industry to have certain recycled content in what it is producing.

One problem is imports. With so many plastic imports it may be hard to police if recycled content claimed by importing countries is truly recycled content.

But still for the items actually made in the US like the bottles and storage tubs and bags and such you can have very high recycled content percentages required to try and recover the reuse. That would make the US uncompetitive on these items? I guess there is always the magic tariff... if this is really such an important thing to reduce plastic waste...

It is easier to just pretend you are doing something by having a bunch of plastic regulations that are failing and just increase costs to the consumer and create more plastic and more waste?

I wouldn't call park benches and carts a novelty item. What about milk crates, sprinkler parts, plumbing materials, seats for public transport, fast food seating, whatever other thick plastic items are made in the US?

If we made more here in the US, there would be more use for the recycled material too. I think that is another thing holding this whole recycling thing back.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by mbz321 »

storewanderer wrote: July 21st, 2022, 10:03 pm You are lying when you claim the recycling doesn't work. That is a complete lie.
There are statistics that state 9% of all plastic *ever created* have been recycled. Nine. That to me says recycling does not work. We should definitely invest in innovations and technologies to recycle more plastic, but for the time being, we absolutely should be trying to reduce its use whenever possible.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by buckguy »

storewanderer wrote: July 19th, 2022, 9:38 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: July 19th, 2022, 5:12 am

We need to help people realize that plastic is being buried in landfills and we need to encourage alternatives. Ultimately, plastic particles are contaminating our food and getting into our bodies. Plastic particles are found in fish and other food. This is coming back to haunt us. Micro-plastics are found in humans and it is causing all sorts of health problems. Many health conditions were very rare until plastics started showing up everywhere. Plastics contain endocrine disruptors. These are linked to autism. The rate of autism has exploded ever since plastic replaced glass in many food containers.

Plastics #3 to #7 used to be sent to China where it was burned for fuel.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/ ... g-america/

Plastic may seem more convenient but ultimately perhaps Costco and other food places need to switch back to traditional materials such as paper cups that are not leaving micro-plastics that go into the food chain. Maybe they could go back to paper straws coated with wax. Those were used in the past.
But the problem is everything done to regulate and restrict plastic is causing more plastic to be used. Regulate the thin plastic bag, but allow bags 6 times thicker... regulate the plastic straw, but not the plastic cup so places give you a paper or some other material straw but give you a plastic cup (who used to give you a paper cup).

So the solution is to force the recycling to actually take place. As was suggested in the post above- figure out what China was doing with all of that plastic they used to take, and do it here. And let industry figure it out. Regulate how much plastic is allowed in the waste stream and how much must be recycled. Force the companies who make it to deal with the problem if it is such a problem (I think it is being overblown how much of a problem it really is), like they did with the tobacco companies.

If industry can't figure out how to recycle it, then they can't produce it. I suspect they would figure out how to recycle it in short order.

All the plastic regulations have done is INCREASE plastic use, INCREASE overall waste, INCREASE profits for the plastic companies, INCREASE profits for other little companies who make the "allowable" alternate products and price gouge for it and actively participate in anti plastics legislation to build their alternate product businesses, and most importantly INCREASE costs to the consumer. These regulations have also hurt US jobs as many of the "replacement" products tend to be imported. But if you force the recycling and make it take place here you will retain the jobs producing plastic products here plus create more jobs here for the new industries that pop up from the recycling. Seems like a win win to me.

And that is the biggest problem I see is this is a legislated as a waste reduction move but all that is being done, at best, is you shift the waste type around. Instead of a little plastic shampoo bottle in a hotel now it is a little foil thing like a fast food ketchup. No more little plastic straws, but a ton more big huge plastic cups. No more thin plastic bags, but super thick ones replace them. No plastic utensils, new "compostable" ones that look suspiciously like plastic.

This is turning into yet another topic that is just costing the public at large more money, lining corporate pockets further, and wasting everyone's time because it is being over-regulated and the regulations are a total and complete failure at accomplishing what they claim to want to accomplish.
I don't see anyone presenting any data for the usual statements supporting the status quo. This is the same stuff we used to hear about cars and air pollution. It's the same strategy used by big tobacco to fight regulation of smoking and it served as the blueprint for everything else the corporate sector is unwilling to do: Create doubt, don't present any real data and conceal what you already know to be true.

Recycling moved from China to other countries with Indonesia being a major importer. It's likely that markets for this will simply move like any other markets have. The long-term solution is buying less commodity junk and making more use of reusables and better consideration of materials entering the environment. The products that accomplish this often start out as relatively expensive but often go to scale and become cheaper. Jackets insulated with recycled soda bottles are one example of this.

Back to where this started people holding on to leaky cups and complaining about faulty straws. Frankly a decent milkshake or the usual frappacino (or a knock off) will ultimately get stuck in any straw. Ditto a slurpee, even with the bigger straws they used to have. Cheap cups often leak. The tops sometimes don't fit and any straw is going to have problems with a lot of drinks. Styrofoam is among the most difficult products to recycle. Investing in a good insulating bottle is probably a better use of rime and resources. I mentioned it because it is one of my favorite travel gadgets and saves me from things like overpriced bottles of water at convenience stores on turnpikes, so it's more than paid for itself. Whether you buy a gadget like that is your choice, but the point is you don't have to buy junk that is a drag on the environment even if the drag is cut just a bit. I gave up Amazon except for downloads and things I truly couldn't find elsewhere---not difficult and it means that more money circulates locally which is good for any community. I avoid Walmart, in part, because they circulate so little money in the communities they dominate. They've been destructive in numerous other ways---they've been destructive to communities, workers, and suppliers. It's taken a long time, but their apologists have become fewer and fewer and perhaps the same will come to be said about styrofoam. WM and Amazon are no longer the bargain they once were, so it's actually pretty easy to live well and not spend a lot of money or cause a lot of un-necessary packaging to be used. Believe whatever you want from corporate talking points, but they usually turn out to be willful lies and it's not too difficult to live outside of them.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by storewanderer »

mbz321 wrote: July 22nd, 2022, 12:36 pm
storewanderer wrote: July 21st, 2022, 10:03 pm You are lying when you claim the recycling doesn't work. That is a complete lie.
There are statistics that state 9% of all plastic *ever created* have been recycled. Nine. That to me says recycling does not work. We should definitely invest in innovations and technologies to recycle more plastic, but for the time being, we absolutely should be trying to reduce its use whenever possible.
I think more information is needed to better quantify that 9% of "all plastic."

As we sit here in a plastic chair, typing on a plastic keyboard, using a plastic mouse, in a room likely lit up by a plastic light fixture, with a computer screen that is lined in plastic - is all of that plastic included as part of the 91% of plastic that is never recycled? Because a lot of plastic in stuff like that is attached to other components in such a way that it isn't going to easily be recycled. And that is exactly the type of stuff that nobody is trying to regulate.... yet you could regulate that too by forcing a certain percentage of it to contain recycled content (the recycled content from bottles, bags, whatever stuff is stand alone and can be recycled)...

Also what percent of the stuff being regulated, like bags and straws, is part of the total plastic waste? It is a fraction of a percent of the total plastic waste. And that is another problem I have with these regulations. They target the wrong plastic. They don't go after the big stuff. They go after small things that mean nothing in the overall scheme, and ironically if the small things were properly recycled, they could make a big difference in making the "larger plastic objects" be made from recycled materials...

Multiple states do bottle deposits and collect bottles. I know the advent of those laws was partially about litter control and partially about recycling but at this point I am thinking solely on the recycling piece of that puzzle. Those deposit refunded bottles are supposed to be getting recycled. That was the point of the bottle deposit. Is that not happening? I have read many of the states bottle deposit programs are insolvent, so maybe they can't afford to recycle. Again if industries were forced to use recycled plastic in what they are manufacturing this would not be a problem as it would create a market for the recycled plastic.
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Re: Costco Raises Food Court Prices

Post by storewanderer »

buckguy wrote: July 22nd, 2022, 4:25 pm
I don't see anyone presenting any data for the usual statements supporting the status quo. This is the same stuff we used to hear about cars and air pollution. It's the same strategy used by big tobacco to fight regulation of smoking and it served as the blueprint for everything else the corporate sector is unwilling to do: Create doubt, don't present any real data and conceal what you already know to be true.
Actually that is exactly what most of the folks pushing these plastic regulations are doing too.

The folks pushing this knowing that thicker plastics will replace the thinner ones under the guise of "reusable" are laughing all the way to the bank. The folks selling these "alternative materials" which at this point have rather dubious/unknown claims as to if they are really any better for the environment than plastic are basically doing the same exact thing.

Reminds me of the various artificial sweetener alternatives over the years. New ones come out, they are deemed "safer" than the previous one, then a few years later stuff starts coming out on that new one suddenly not being so safe anymore but there is another new one in the wings and that one is the safe one (until it isn't)...

The clowns who just announced a bunch of single use plastic bans up in Canada including going so far as to announce a future shut down of the manufacturing plants that make things like bags and straws, actually admitted that their bans will lead to a giant increase in overall volume of garbage, just that it won't be plastic anymore, that it will be other forms of garbage that will at least eventually decompose.

And this is the problem. Real solutions are needed that, you know, will actually work. And forcing the recycling is a part of that solution. Pushing thicker plastics, as is happening at this point as a result of various of these regulations, is definitely NOT the solution.

I'd like to see a more meaningful approach to what is happening here. Is it really safe for public health to microwave plastic to reheat food, for example? If not- ban that type of plastic packaging (there you go, cut down on plastic waste from that)...
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