Nestle creates wrapper that degrades in the sea within six months

https://news.sky.com/story/nestle-creates-wrapper-that-degrades-in-the-sea-within-six-months-11755547

by pingou • 7 years ago

34 7 7 years ago

news.sky.com

It's nice to see Nestlé (which has a long history of unethical and despicable practices) doing something nice for a change.

That said, I personally believe that revolutionary tech like this should be released for anyone and everyone to use freely for the greater good (sorta like how Volvo gave up the patent for the three-point seatbelt) but I doubt that'll happen in today's world.

iforgotpassword• 7 years ago

When plastic wrapping conquered the planet, everyone thought it was great since plastic is recyclable. Today we know it's mostly a lie so we could send that trash to 3rd world countries who'd just dump it in the sea or handle it in other bad ways.

It's great that this packaging solves the problem of plastic staying around forever or turning into microplastics when floating around in the ocean and exposed to the UV light from the sun.

But the first thing I'm wondering is whether that new packaging really solves that problem too or just speeds the process up a lot, or maybe just has different bad effects. Towards the end it mentions "carefully wrapped in paper", so hopefully it's not actually a more hazardous variant of plastic that happens to degrade faster.

southern_cross• 7 years ago

Cellophane is basically a form of paper but it looks and feels like plastic. It's been around forever and is completely biodegradable. I expect that this packaging is maybe just new form of that.

benj111• 7 years ago

What are we actually talking about here?

Degradable != biodegradable.

Degradable just breaks up into microplastics quicker. But then it mentions paper near the end, so is it a paper plastic laminate?

itgoon• 7 years ago

Yes, I'd like to know what components it degrades into. Microplastics might look better, but they enter into the ecosystem very easily.

astura• 7 years ago

I just hope it's not as LOUD as the Sun Chips biodegradable bag. This was actually a legitimate problem, I stopped buying Sun Chips for parties because of the obnoxious sounds of the bag.

https://gizmodo.com/sunchips-new-100-compostable-bag-is-hila...

iamnotacrook• 7 years ago

"I just hope it's not as LOUD as the Sun Chips biodegradable bag. This was actually a legitimate problem"

A solution to the problem of man-made waste lasting potentially hundreds of years and causing damage to the eco-system at the cost of temporarily annoying a few people too lazy to decant the contents of the packet into a bowl or plate or just put up with the noise as they consume their junk food is pretty much a perfect solution, isn't it?

Nestle creates wrapper that degrades in the sea within six months

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