Comment box Scope: summary, personal reaction Tone: neutral, a little feisty Opinion: yes, lots Sarcasm/humor: none California is just banning plastic bags at grocery stores, including "reusable"...
Comment box
Scope: summary, personal reaction
Tone: neutral, a little feisty
Opinion: yes, lots
Sarcasm/humor: none
California is just banning plastic bags at grocery stores, including "reusable" plastic bags (that no one actually reuses). They will just use paper bags.
They are also banning "sell by" labels (which are nonstandard and rarely indicative of actual food safety) in order to discourage food waste.
Obligatory preemptive counterargument: every time someone suggests decreasing our use of plastic in favor of something more nominally environmentally friendly, like paper, we hear about how paper bags are actually not good for the environment because something about deforestation and the emissions of the production of the bag.
The deforestation claim is pretty much bunk. The Amazon is being bulldozed for cows, not paper. Modern forestry practices, especially in the northern hemisphere, are decently sustainable.
As for manufacturing, OK: the emissions are on the order of 2x higher relatively, energy use around 3x higher, and water use around... 20x higher. But in absolute terms, a paper bag produces about 5kg of emissions (edit: I kind of don't believe this, see thread below; this seems like a huge overestimation). The average American produces 16 tons (14,515kg) of CO2e per year. So even if you buy 10 paper bags of food per week (seems high to me), every week, that's about 520kg for a whole year, or about 3.5% of a person's total emissions. That's not nothing, but it's also just... not very much. Considering how harmful plastic is in other ways, I don't know how much I care about paper emissions. I think if people are serious about reducing emissions they should stop living in exurbs and stop driving cars so much. And probably not fly. And buy solar panels. And eat less beef. And demand that California change its water rights laws to stop encouraging farmers to waste their water on alfalfa.
I have no problem with high water use as long as it's done in places with a lot of water (and there are many such places in the world). I don't think most paper bags sold in California are produced there. But even if they are, that is something fairly easy to fix with legislation. Just ban the production of water-intensive paper products in places consistently stricken by drought. Yeah yeah economy. Not a technical barrier.
I actually think paper bag production is a reasonable use for CCS tech. CCS gets a lot of hate (fairly) because it's an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels. But all manufacturing will always have some emissions, even for stuff that we can't reasonably replace. If CCS can cut carbon emissions of paper bag pollution by 90% (?!), it's pretty much negligible. (I'm skeptical of that claim, but even a reduction of 50% would be very satisfactory to me.)
The actual environmental impact of paper bags has been going down by itself though. "Between 2007 and 2021, the carbon intensity of a single paper sack was reduced by 28%." Recycling technology has also gotten better, and this new law in California increases the amount of recycled paper in the bags from 40% to 50%.
I'd rather have fewer emissions, but as far as I'm concerned, "environmental harm" is significantly broader than that. I care about the health of the environment and its ecosystems just as much as emissions - and plastic is a huge localized source of environmental damage. Animals eat plastic and die, or don't die but ingest so much microplastic that they drop dead a week later. Also I care about human health, both because I am a human and most people I know are humans. Microplastics never go away and they probably give people 8000 awful health conditions. It's the lead paint of the 21st century.
So this legislation is fine by me. That's 19 billion fewer plastic bags produced per year. I despise the proliferation of plastic garbage and am happy to see it reduced.
I'm all for getting rid of plastic bags, but I will say when I lived somewhere that had banned them was the only time in my life I bought little waste basket liners and those little poop bags for...
I'm all for getting rid of plastic bags, but I will say when I lived somewhere that had banned them was the only time in my life I bought little waste basket liners and those little poop bags for walking your dog since I used the grocery store bags for those things. Most people didn't reuse them so it's a net benefit, but at a personal level it felt a bit funny.
I can very much relate to this, having recently moved to Sweden with 3 cats. I have to buy bags for my litter now, rather than using grocery bags. And any time I buy something that comes in a...
I can very much relate to this, having recently moved to Sweden with 3 cats. I have to buy bags for my litter now, rather than using grocery bags. And any time I buy something that comes in a remotely usable plastic bag, I rinse it out and keep it in a cabinet in my kitchen, and I feel like a little rat hoarding my horrible treasures.
yeah, those are some.of the few uses where plastic bags do indeed make sense. I live somewhere without plastic grocery bags already and don't mind buying them, but I absolutely did use old grocery...
yeah, those are some.of the few uses where plastic bags do indeed make sense. I live somewhere without plastic grocery bags already and don't mind buying them, but I absolutely did use old grocery bags for them when I lived in the US.
https://www.biobagworld.com/us_en/products/household-food-scrap-bags/Compostable%20Drawstring%20Bags?category=138&product_id=298 Certified to compost in a home garden.
Are you suggesting using those in a garage can? I would worry they'll break down before the bag is full. I don't use bags for compost, I just use a container I can run through the dishwasher.
Are you suggesting using those in a garage can? I would worry they'll break down before the bag is full.
I don't use bags for compost, I just use a container I can run through the dishwasher.
Well if its just dry bathroom stuff, it will be fine. If its really wet probably after a day or two best to empty. But mainly the idea was at least one thing you are tossing into the landfill...
Well if its just dry bathroom stuff, it will be fine. If its really wet probably after a day or two best to empty.
But mainly the idea was at least one thing you are tossing into the landfill won’t last forever.
I agree with the spirit of what you're saying. However, the only trash can in my house I know only has dry stuff on it is the recycle bin. Different people have different restroom needs. Hygiene...
I agree with the spirit of what you're saying. However, the only trash can in my house I know only has dry stuff on it is the recycle bin. Different people have different restroom needs. Hygiene products aside, anyone who wears daily contacts is going to have at least some liquid in their trash. So will folks who use makeup remover and haven't yet switched to the reusable rounds.
Anyway, this feels like it's going off topic. I apologize if I come across as argumentative, I like to help folks see things from different perspectives.
I was very annoyed at having to buy small bag liners for the first time. Once I got used to it I realized that they did a better job of not dumping soiled kitty litter all over the floor if you...
I was very annoyed at having to buy small bag liners for the first time. Once I got used to it I realized that they did a better job of not dumping soiled kitty litter all over the floor if you overstuffed them a little.
Climate town is my jam. Also, as paper bags are, frankly, less effective as bags, this move encourages use of more permanent bags. As such a simple multiplier on emissions might paint an...
Climate town is my jam.
Also, as paper bags are, frankly, less effective as bags, this move encourages use of more permanent bags. As such a simple multiplier on emissions might paint an ungenerous climate impact perhaps? As in the results might be less negative than that simple maths....
The main problem with paper is one you haven't mentioned - post-use. If it's recycled, fine. Burned for power in clean incinerators? Super. But if paper goes to landfill, it can leach various...
The main problem with paper is one you haven't mentioned - post-use. If it's recycled, fine. Burned for power in clean incinerators? Super. But if paper goes to landfill, it can leach various nasty chemicals and worse, degrade anerobically to form methane, which is an extremely potent greenhouse gas - 84 times more so than carbon dioxide.
The answer to this is of course to not use landfill, but until that's happening the best course of action is to sell people 100% compostable plastic bags (not PLA held together with starch glue which composts to form microplastics). Plenty of shops where I live will sell you a compostable bag if you've forgotten your own.
Personally I would ban disposable bags altogether. Forgot your bag? Tough. Carry your stuff home in your hands or buy something expensively reusable. People will learn quickly enough to remember a bag. I have one which packs small enough to live on my keyring. It's not that hard.
Per paper bag? that seems absolutely insane, a paper bag weighs < 100g by itself. Especially when plastic bags are essentially carbon capture technology when they are properly disposed of in a...
a paper bag produces about 5kg of emissions
Per paper bag? that seems absolutely insane, a paper bag weighs < 100g by itself. Especially when plastic bags are essentially carbon capture technology when they are properly disposed of in a landfill.
The cost of improper disposal is obviously high, but I'm not convinced that plastic bag bans at grocery stores are effective at all & not just performative. After all, you always bring plastic grocery bags home because that's where your fridge is.
I would be happy to see plastic bans in things like takeout food, which anecdotally, actually do make up the bulk of litter.
I think about the plastic waste from takeout time to time The other day I bought an order of black garlic ramen from a local noodle shop, and I got the order separated into the broth (in a quart...
I think about the plastic waste from takeout time to time
The other day I bought an order of black garlic ramen from a local noodle shop, and I got the order separated into the broth (in a quart plastic container), the noodles (in this little circular two compartment container), and the add-ins (in the upper part of the container)
The plasticware was honestly nice enough to where I was a bit confused and thought it was Tupperware meant to be reused. If it didn’t seem so wasteful, I would have thought it was cool
I suspect the public at large is not going to be happy to transition away from a system where take out food can be more sustainably packaged, nonetheless businesses that rely on take out orders packaged into wasteful little systems like that
Personally I support trying to change that through regulation, but it’s going to be a culture shock for many people I suspect
When I lived in Zurich we had this one Thai take out that would actually "rent" you a metal container the first time you order from them for the equivalent of 10 USD. Every time you order after...
When I lived in Zurich we had this one Thai take out that would actually "rent" you a metal container the first time you order from them for the equivalent of 10 USD. Every time you order after the first time you would give back the container from last time to the delivery guy. It is such an elegant solution. If all the delivery restaurants would use the same containers, it would be even better. And if you are "done" with that restaurant for good they also buy the container back from you.
It was a very elegant container with two levels stacked on top, so one compartment held the sauce and the other compartment held the rice for example. So versatile, completely leak proof, and with a comfortable handle on top to hold it like a little basket.
There's a company that does something like this here in Berlin at several different restaurants that deliver. Not enough of the places that I've taken part, bc iirc it's not totally free, but it's...
There's a company that does something like this here in Berlin at several different restaurants that deliver. Not enough of the places that I've taken part, bc iirc it's not totally free, but it's an approach that has a lot of promise when it comes to making takeout more eco-friendly.
Noodle shop containers (along with thai shop containers) are premium! I know some folks that basically use nothing else for their personal food storage.
Noodle shop containers (along with thai shop containers) are premium! I know some folks that basically use nothing else for their personal food storage.
Plastic and Styrofoam have been banned for takeout where I live for years. If you order pho takeout, you'll get a waxed paper container with a kid for the broth and either a waxed paper box or a...
Plastic and Styrofoam have been banned for takeout where I live for years. If you order pho takeout, you'll get a waxed paper container with a kid for the broth and either a waxed paper box or a compressed paper clamshell for the rest. Everything will easily smash flat for recycling or composting.
Comment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none It does seem high and I think I don't believe it. There is probably some confusion with...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, information, opinion
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
Per paper bag? that seems absolutely insane, a paper bag weighs < 100g by itself.
It does seem high and I think I don't believe it. There is probably some confusion with units. I also think that a large portion of those emissions are just from fossil fuel energy sources, not a chemical process in the paper production itself (which would have a comparatively modest impact). If our energy is coming from green sources, the emissions are a lot lower.
I also see different figures elsewhere. This article says "From 2018 to 2021, this course was continued: the impact per tonne of sack kraft paper was improved by 5% – from 442 kg CO2e to 421 kg CO2e."
That would make the CO2e of a single paper bag more like 0.4kg, not 5kg.
This source puts GHG emissions of 1000 paper bags at 0.0374... tons of CO2e? So 1 paper bag would be 0.0374kg CO2e, which is another order of magnitude down.
I don't know which source is correct or where the inconsistency originates. But if we're talking an order of magnitude (or two!!!) lower emissions than I originally stated... I do not care about paper bag emissions in the slightest.
Especially when plastic bags are essentially carbon capture technology when they are properly disposed of in a landfill.
I'm not convinced that landfills are the end-all of sustainable trash storage. I remarked on another thread recently that I seriously question the structural integrity of landfill infrastructure over a long timescale. As far as I can tell, the production of more plastics means the dissemination of more microplastics, which are harmful for a variety of reasons.
takeout food,
I would also be very pleased to see plastic bans for takeout containers. I think people should be expected to bring their own containers to a restaurant if they want takeout, and restaurants should charge for containers. I don't know what material is best as a replacement, but takeout food will go directly into the refrigerator within like 1 hour, so I don't think it has to be super durable.
The city council banned plastic bags in grocery stores pre COVID on Seattle, after failing to do so via a vote. I think the training had something to do with turtles or orcas. Outside of grocery...
The city council banned plastic bags in grocery stores pre COVID on Seattle, after failing to do so via a vote. I think the training had something to do with turtles or orcas.
Outside of grocery stores plastic bags were still used. Restaurants, clothing stores, I can't remember if target still had them or not.
This did indeed get people using reusable bags at the grocery store, but I wasn't the only one who was cranky about it. If you forgot your reusable bags or didn't bring enough of them, you were stock with paper bags you had to pay for. In an area with a rainy season, this is a terrible backup, especially in a city where they're trying to get folks to drive less. Paper bags gradually melt in the rain.
During lockdown of course reusable bags weren't allowed on most stores because we didn't yet know how COVID spread. So folks got out of the habit of bringing bags again. Now the stores have those heavy plastic bags for 8 cents or something that are supposed to be reusable.
I think this is good legislation. I also think it shouldn’t just apply to grocery stores, but progress is progress. Plastic bags are almost completely banned where I live, with a few exceptions....
I think this is good legislation. I also think it shouldn’t just apply to grocery stores, but progress is progress. Plastic bags are almost completely banned where I live, with a few exceptions. It was strange at first, but it’s ultimately not as impactful as some might think.
Stores offer paper bags, but they charge you for it. So, you learn to keep a few re-usable bags in your car. In some stores, such as hardware stores, they’ll offer you a box to carry your items in. Those boxes are just the boxes they received items in, thereby reusing an ultimately recyclable object. And life goes on.
I used to have one of those plastic bag storage devices that resemble large tissue boxes before living where I do now. It’s true that I used to reuse them for various things (dog poop, small trash cans, etc.). Now when I need a plastic bag for a specific need, I have to be more deliberate. But I think that’s a decent trade-off. If that is, in some way, inefficient, it’s better than the over-use of flimsy plastic bags.
I wish more places would commit to this. It really doesn’t have the kind of impact on your day-to-day life like some seem to think it does.
Archive: https://archive.is/sCnyy Standardizing labels sounds good, but I did a brief search and couldn't find recent info about which bill it is or what it actually does.
Other plastic- and waste-related bills were also passed this week, including one that would ban the use of various “sell by” labels on food, instead requiring that the language and meaning be standardized so consumers understand what it means.
“Phrases like ‘enjoy by,’ ‘expires on,’ ‘sell by’ — and even, at times, just a random date with no label at all — offer little insight to consumers on the quality or safety of the food that they are eating,”
Standardizing labels sounds good, but I did a brief search and couldn't find recent info about which bill it is or what it actually does.
Comment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral, explanatory Opinion: some Sarcasm/humor: none Looks like AB-660, “Food and beverage products: labeling: quality dates, safety dates,...
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Scope: comment response, information
Tone: neutral, explanatory
Opinion: some
Sarcasm/humor: none
Looks like AB-660, “Food and beverage products: labeling: quality dates, safety dates, and sell-by dates.”
The bill allows the phrases “Use by” and “Use by or Freeze by” to indicate safety and “Best if Used by” and “Best if Used or Frozen by” to indicate subjective quality.
I’d rather they just ban them altogether. It’s pretty obvious when food has gone bad, and any label like this still contributes to unnecessary food waste. But I’ll take it over the current system. Now that it’ll be standardized, people can at least be educated about it.
There should really be federal legislation for this.
It's not always obvious that food has gone bad especially before it goes in your mouth, and it's very handy for folks like me, who can lose track of things in the fridge or cupboard for extended...
It's not always obvious that food has gone bad especially before it goes in your mouth, and it's very handy for folks like me, who can lose track of things in the fridge or cupboard for extended periods of time, to know how old something is.
I opened a package of cookies that my office had lying around for guests, they'd been giving them away due to being just past "expiration." Soft Oreos are unpleasant when unintentional. I've also had the unpleasant experience of putting food in my mouth and then finding signs of its demise in the container after... Mold in particular. It's the sort of thing that will have me not eating a food for six months.
Education around what those labels mean, absolutely. And standardizing what "Best By" and "Use By" and such mean, also good. But some of us do really need a guideline. Idk when I bought my eggs. Which package is newer? Shoot, how old is that salsa exactly?
Comment box Scope: comment response Tone: skeptical, opinionated, socially contrarian Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none So this is part of the problem - you are buying too much food, not eating it,...
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Tone: skeptical, opinionated, socially contrarian
Opinion: yes
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Idk when I bought my eggs. Which package is newer? Shoot, how old is that salsa exactly?
So this is part of the problem - you are buying too much food, not eating it, and then not knowing when it's gone bad. This haphazard approach to food waste is incredibly common. It's inefficient - a waste of money and resources, and contributes to completely unnecessary physical waste (production emissions, packaging, etc.).
People are locked in a psychology that they're incapable of telling whether food is good because they've become so emotionally accustomed to these labels. As children we are no longer taught to identify the quality of food by its appearance or smell, so we significantly overbuy food... has any of it gone bad? Well, who cares, that one is past its "best by" date - toss it.
Knowing when food is bad is somewhat of a base human instinct - and that sense is enormously heightened when the food in question is seriously dangerous. Humans have, for the entirety of history, had to eat food nearly every day. We have an evolutionary reaction to food that is obviously harmful to us. If you have ever smelled rotting flesh - which could totally get you sick - you will involuntarily wrinkle your nose, gag, or otherwise have a physical value of repulsion. It's disgusting. The same applies on a minor scale to, say, dairy products that are a little past their prime - it's very easy to tell when milk has begun to sour (the appearance, the consistency, and the smell). You can smell the sulfur when eggs are rotting, you can see the ugly white or green mold on a piece of bread, etc.
We have pretty much completely stopped teaching children how to check for food quality, including mold. It's not hard to teach and not hard to remember. The learned experience of ingesting a slightly old piece of bread makes it especially clear. Yes this can be a little bit unpleasant - but it's a strong incentive to actually maintain an organized kitchen and not waste dozens of pounds of food a year.
In some cases these labels can encourage people to ingest food that is actually not in good condition. There are, and will always be, some attributes of food quality that a label fundamentally cannot tell you. If you left the milk out for twelve hours, the label does not know. Will drinking that kill you? No, but it might have soured. If you're exclusively glancing at the label, and not using your eyes or nose to look for warning signs, you might absent-mindedly drink it, taste it, and then be repulsed. Whoops.
Many foods today are so heavily processed that they don't go bad for weeks or months at a time - though they can generally last significantly longer than the labels claim. This is nice and all, but people don't seem to be aware of how this affects their kitchen maintenance habits. We just forget about food that's been there for a while; it becomes invisible. So we overbuy more, creating more waste, and the whole process repeats.
There are theoretically legitimate use-cases for these labels, like if someone is blind and also has no sense of smell and also has no sense of taste and also lives alone... I don't think that's a lot of people, but it could be someone. (I don't know how someone blind would read current labels!) But I think there has to be a much more obvious distinction between "this might be a little sour after a week" and "this will give you food poisoning after a week."
If we're going to have labels on our food, "pleasantness" should not be one of them. If you eat stale bread, that's your fault. Actual safety warnings should be a lot more explicit, and closer to the actual expiration of the product:
Caution: possibly unsafe to ingest past X. Determine safety by... <explanation related to the physical food>
Danger: unsafe to ingest past X....
And they should be written in braille. I once helped a blind woman go through her pantry to clear out expired products. She had a great sense of smell and could have done it herself that way, so she was still succumbing to this social pressure to rely on the written word for everything. But I guess for blind people who don't, this is helpful.
Some food products already have labels along these lines, but they usually don't refer to actual qualities of the food, instead more stuff like "Don't ingest if you've left it on the counter for more than 15 seconds," which is usually a very conservative figure and also doesn't tell you anything useful, it just encourages waste.
I think most able-bodied people should be ignoring "best by" and "use by" labels for most food products, because most such people have the physical and mental capability to tell whether food is bad.
I wrote up a lot, and deleted it, and I"m just going to say that A. I'm generally considered able-bodied but the ADHD tax is a documented thing that means I have to work hard not to waste food and...
I wrote up a lot, and deleted it, and I"m just going to say that
A. I'm generally considered able-bodied but the ADHD tax is a documented thing that means I have to work hard not to waste food and that doesn't mean I'm successful.
B. "Pleasantness" is something that matters more to brands. If a customer buys Jif Peanut Butter, forgets about it for 3 years and it's in bad condition and tastes bad, that customer bad mouths Jif to all their friends. For as much as there's "it's a plot to make you throw away good food" it's also just a plain old "we want customers to have a positive experience with our food."
C. I'd fully agree that what dates are provided should be written in Braille and be scannable and read out load by a device/app
D. I think a "Dangerous by" date would cause worse waste because for liability reasons, corporations will lean earlier if after the date is actually dangerous
I am not so optimistic about your perspective on how humans can inherently identify food that is unsafe. It contradicts centuries of food-borne illnesses. Plenty of it can indeed make us gag, but food can look bad before it is bad and can look good while being very unsafe.
Thanks! At first glance, this looks like a minor change. It sounds like you haven’t thought through the implications in the food industry of not having dates on packages and the things that can go...
Thanks! At first glance, this looks like a minor change.
It sounds like you haven’t thought through the implications in the food industry of not having dates on packages and the things that can go wrong. Sometimes food doesn’t sell, it gets stuck in warehouses at distributors, etc. There is financial incentive to sell it anyway. Here is an example of a store that ignored the dates:
I don’t think it’s always wrong to sell food that’s gotten a little old and it doesn’t sound like it was a health issue in this case, but the consumer should be aware and it should be sold at a discount. With no dates at all, some retailers (or their distributors) will take advantage, because they can. This is what product labeling is all about, to tell you things that aren’t immediately apparent.
We have bought stale bread before (from Target) and since then I always check dates. I’m perhaps a little pickier than some about this.
Quality is also not immediately apparent to a store employee, so putting dates on food packages is a practical measure for quality control in a supply chain, even though it’s fairly arbitrary. It’s not like they’re going to be opening packages and tasting the food.
More generally, consumers care about quality and not just whether food is edible. We pay higher prices for quality. If the food doesn’t meet the usual standard, someone is getting ripped off. In economics, there is the notion of a “market for lemons” which is that if quality is variable and buyers can’t tell what they’ll get, they eventually learn not to pay as much, even for high-quality products.
Yes, and I'll add that retailers rely on those labels to know when products need to be pulled on shelves. If labels were eliminated, it's not just that retailers would take advantage (even though...
Yes, and I'll add that retailers rely on those labels to know when products need to be pulled on shelves. If labels were eliminated, it's not just that retailers would take advantage (even though they would), they would no longer have any capability to ensure that unsafe food was off of shelves.
Retailers don't know how old a box of cereal is by looking at some system. They have no idea if a box has been on the shelf for a day or three months, which is why they rely on stockers regularly checking those dates. In their systems, they track their current stock by quantity for item type, not by each individual item. Removing sell by labels would make them somehow develop their own tracking system that may or may not be accurate. Many of them would likely just not do anything and cross their fingers and hope for the best.
The dates on those packages are primarily for the retailers, not the consumers.
I actually didn't even think about the fact that I manage to save a lot of money by buying food near its expiration date! Removing them would cost me $
I actually didn't even think about the fact that I manage to save a lot of money by buying food near its expiration date! Removing them would cost me $
Comment box Scope: comment response question Tone: neutral Opinion: none Sarcasm/humor: none OK. How do you think we should best reduce the amount of food waste generated by consumers?
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Scope: comment response question
Tone: neutral
Opinion: none
Sarcasm/humor: none
OK.
How do you think we should best reduce the amount of food waste generated by consumers?
I think it’s quite difficult because it’s often a psychological problem. People are often not very rational about what they buy. Hoarding is an extreme case, but food piling up in cabinets or...
I think it’s quite difficult because it’s often a psychological problem. People are often not very rational about what they buy. Hoarding is an extreme case, but food piling up in cabinets or going bad in refrigerators is common and not new. There are songs about it.
And this is in people’s houses - it’s very personal space.
But when the food is already paid for, the environment impact already happened and it’s just taking up personal space. It’s not really anyone else’s problem. I think people can decide on their own when to clean up?
I see food piling up as a symptom of buying too much or buying the wrong things. The waste is secondary, and eventually you run out of space, so it reaches equilibrium. (Except for hoarders.)
So, I’m not sure I would focus on food waste in particular. What larger problems are you interested in that it’s related to?
Comment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none I'm concerned about food waste because of its requisite environmental impact. If food...
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Scope: comment response, information, opinion
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
I'm concerned about food waste because of its requisite environmental impact. If food expiration labels (for example) encourage people to hoard or overbuy food, which to some extent they do, that is an upstream/systemic cause of overproduction, which is a waste of resources.
From an environmental standpoint I don't think I care a whole lot about the waste of the literal food itself. Food biodegrades. The only problem I have with the waste of food matter itself is the municipal headache of garbage management and disposal; the more food that is wasted, the more critters are getting into garbage and the more homeless people are ripping open bags to get at that food, etc., which means trash gets absolutely everywhere and streets are filthy. That's not so much an environmental impact as much as a social problem.
But if food is being thrown out without being eaten, all the packaging etc is also being thrown out, having been produced for no reason; supply chains are being overbuilt; farms are being overbuilt and therefore that land is not wilded, etc. By overbuying food, people are paying money to emit greenhouse gases for something that does not benefit them or society as a whole.
From an equity standpoint I see food waste as a completely pointless consumption pattern. Food insecurity is a real problem that I witness multiple times per day, every day, without fail. At best, it is careless for individuals to not give a hoot about how much food they buy (and waste) -- this level of waste is really compounded by American individualism "I do what I want with my money and you can't tell me that it's bad for the world" -- and at worst it is cruel for society to encourage it through its various systems and cultural practices.
If we can design the process of purchasing, acquiring, and storing food such that people simply do not waste food, we should probably do that. This is why I am interested in things like changes to expiration date labels. I am content with standardization+education but would prefer a more comprehensive solution. Education is a terribly inefficient and high-effort way to make a large number of people do things on a long timescale.
On an institutional level, the way we use expiration labels encourages grocery stores to throw out a ridiculous amount of perfectly edible and suitable food. These dates are extremely arbitrary. If the law can be written in such a way that bans them from doing that except when it's an actual safety risk, that would be ideal - because there are many, many better uses for safe and edible food than being dumped in a landfill.
Here’s another perspective on it: maybe we should ask why the food got old enough that the expiration date even matters? Why wasn’t it used before? Sometimes someone bought the food and it turns...
Here’s another perspective on it: maybe we should ask why the food got old enough that the expiration date even matters? Why wasn’t it used before?
Sometimes someone bought the food and it turns out they didn’t care for it. A lot of food is cheap enough that people buy it on a whim, to see if they would like it. Or, they buy food for others, who don’t like it. Or, they liked it at first, so they bought a lot, but got tired of it. Or, they bought it for one recipe and never needed it again. Or maybe they overestimated how many people show up for a party and how much those people would eat? It’s typical for people to offer very generous amounts of food because they like the vibe of having a lot of food around. We use the word “generous” a lot when it comes to food, and from an efficiency standpoint, it often means “way too much” and “more than is healthy.”
(Of course, there are leftovers, so it’s not all wasted.)
The safety risk is besides the point if they’re not going to eat it anyway. The longer it’s on the shelf, the less likely it is that they’d eat it at all, and often throwing stuff out is finally admitting that it was a mistake. To not waste it, it would need to go to a food bank or something so that someone else who actually wants it could eat it.
Similarly, when a grocery stores buys food, this is a bet that consumers will like it, and sometimes they bet wrong, and it doesn’t sell. That’s a common reason why food stays on the shelf until it expires - it’s a specialty item and it turns out nobody wanted it.
This is an inventory management problem. Product that doesn’t sell takes up shelf space that could have been used instead for products that do sell. An efficiently-run business is going to get rid of product that doesn’t sell well before it expires. It will even get rid of it if it never expires, like old books or CD’s, back when people still bought CD’s.
So, a sell-by date acts as a deadline for getting rid of stuff. There are ways to clear inventory by putting things on sale, or by selling it cheap to another store that will try to sell it, or donating it.
All of these things could be done before the deadline, when there is a deadline. A well-run business will meet the deadline. A deadline, even an arbitrary one, can serve as motivation. But sometimes it doesn’t work and people lose track of things.
So, from this perspective, shelf-stable food reaching the sell-by date and being thrown out is a symptom of a buying mistake and/or disorganization, and changing the deadline or removing it doesn’t fix the disorganization.
And it’s interesting that Walmart and Costco became big in part by doing inventory management better (in different ways). If you sell everything you buy, it’s not waste, from a store’s perspective.
Consumers are not the largest problem nor the easiest problem to solve. To reduce food waste, we should prevent stores and restaurants dtom disposing of perfectly good, unsold food. Maybe require...
Consumers are not the largest problem nor the easiest problem to solve. To reduce food waste, we should prevent stores and restaurants dtom disposing of perfectly good, unsold food. Maybe require it to be donated, or charge fees for commercial food disposal. All the changes I can come up with are very detrimental to the business but I don't really care about businesses, so that's my bias.
"Ugly" but perfectly good, safe foods, should appear on shelves with a little sign explaining that it's fine. If I see discolored or misshapen produce, I don't avoid it because I care what it looks like, I avoid it because I don't know if it's actually okay to eat. Currently a lot of this produce is tossed before it even hits the shelves.
As far as the customer goes, there are so many reasons that food might be purchased and thrown out that it's hard to address. Recently we had to throw out a whole bunch of fresh fruit and meat, a real shame, because literally hours after we bought it he had to go to the hospital and we didn't come back until after it had gone bad. Nothing can reasonably be done about that.
Another time a bunch of food got thrown out, it was after my mother in law came to visit. She bought a bunch of stuff that she likes and that we would never eat. When she left a lot of stuff just got tossed. On my end it wasn't even preference, I'm allergic to coconut and I'm a vegetarian and that covered a good chunk of what she bought. There's not really anything anyone other than my mother in law and my husband could do about that, and they're not going to.
I still have a kilogram of oats that she bought sitting in my pantry, I intend to make them into oat milk, but I use such small amounts and it goes bad so quickly that I'm nervous to do it. It's probably going to end up the victim of irony, going bad because I was afraid to ruin it.
Comment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral Opinion: some Sarcasm/humor: none The text says: So it would probably cover Target, but not restaurants. I wouldn't have exempted...
(g) “Store” means a retail establishment that meets any of the following requirements:
(1) A full-line, self-service retail store with gross annual sales of two million dollars ($2,000,000) or more that sells a line of dry groceries, canned goods, or nonfood items, and some perishable items.
(2) Has at least 10,000 square feet of retail space that generates sales or use tax pursuant to the Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law (Part 1.5 (commencing with Section 7200) of Division 2 of the Revenue and Taxation Code) and has a pharmacy licensed pursuant to Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 4000) of Division 2 of the Business and Professions Code.
(3) Is a convenience food store, foodmart, or other entity that is engaged in the retail sale of a limited line of goods, generally including milk, bread, soda, and snack foods, and that holds a Type 20 or Type 21 license issued by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
(4) Is a convenience food store, foodmart, or other entity that is engaged in the retail sale of goods intended to be consumed off the premises, and that holds a Type 20 or Type 21 license issued by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
(5) Is not otherwise subject to paragraph (1), (2), (3), or (4), if the retail establishment voluntarily agrees to comply with the requirements imposed upon a store pursuant to this chapter, irrevocably notifies the department of its intent to comply with the requirements imposed upon a store pursuant to this chapter, and complies with the requirements established pursuant to Section 42284.
So it would probably cover Target, but not restaurants.
I wouldn't have exempted businesses with low revenue if I had written the law, but I think that the wording of any of those five stipulations would cover the vast majority of retail establishments that sell food.
When I moved to California nearly ten years ago, environmental policy wasn't high on my list of reasons. But since then, I've become more and more aware of how the modern society has a sort of...
When I moved to California nearly ten years ago, environmental policy wasn't high on my list of reasons. But since then, I've become more and more aware of how the modern society has a sort of implicit, unknown 'best by' date when it breaches planetary boundaries. Now I'm glad to live in a state that sets out environmental policies that tend to align with what I value.
I hope lawmakers target food packaging soon. I've been trying to go plastic free wherever I can in my life, and lack of choices when it comes to food packaging has been disheartening, not to mention all other sorts of everyday goods.
[Goes Googling.] Huh, there are a few zero waste, bring-your-own-containers stores in my city. I wasn't able to find any last time I looked. Gotta check them out.
In the UK the government added a 10p charge onto plasticbags and basically overnight plastic bag use dropped and everyone just started using reusable bags / carried bags with enough space for...
In the UK the government added a 10p charge onto plasticbags and basically overnight plastic bag use dropped and everyone just started using reusable bags / carried bags with enough space for extra groceries. I belive the charge is now 30p but I'm not sure as I haven't purchased one in a few years. I belive there has been something like a 95%+ drop in the use of single use plastic bags because of it.
I'm shocked that we were ahead of this curve in Colorado, and are stricter about our plastic bag ban-- there's no exceptions based on what is being sold or the size of the store here, afaik. The...
I'm shocked that we were ahead of this curve in Colorado, and are stricter about our plastic bag ban-- there's no exceptions based on what is being sold or the size of the store here, afaik. The grocery store I work at has paper bags still (that do cost the $0.10/bag still), but it seems the majority of our customers (in a suburb that leans conservative, in the heart of local oil and gas production country) have adapted to either bringing their own or just carrying out their stuff just fine, despite the grousing when this first started for about a month or so.
The real surprising one is that Walmart ditched single use bags entirely (no paper ones) after this ban, I would have thought they would fight tooth and nail against this.
I wish we'd see some action on food containers, although I have noticed more and more places going to (industrially) compostable containers in the last couple years, at the least.
Same here in New York, we have abandoned the single use plastic bags for the paper bags (the surge charge is the same here) and for the people to bring their own bags. Or to just carry out their...
Same here in New York, we have abandoned the single use plastic bags for the paper bags (the surge charge is the same here) and for the people to bring their own bags. Or to just carry out their own grocery goods or consumer goods out to their vehicles.
And since the ban on the single use bags, my family had made a (what is essentially) a stockpile of usable bags that we use, along with some insulated bags (that we had before the ban) for the more temperature sensitive goods, like meat and dairy products, during the warm months.
Yeah, having just moved up here and making a stop at a liquor store (alcohol being oddly expensive here) I just left my reusable bags in the car as I had grown accustomed to as my previous state...
Yeah, having just moved up here and making a stop at a liquor store (alcohol being oddly expensive here) I just left my reusable bags in the car as I had grown accustomed to as my previous state pretty much always bagged liquor store purchases in a paper bag. I just carried it out to my car instead of purchasing a paper bag, as did others, but it was odd to me to just walk out of a liquor store with two bottles of alcohol in hand and not a bag.
It's funny I've literally never seen a grocery store do paper bags and I've only every heard the classic "paper or plastic" in cartoons. We only ever had plastic bags and they were pretty much...
It's funny I've literally never seen a grocery store do paper bags and I've only every heard the classic "paper or plastic" in cartoons.
We only ever had plastic bags and they were pretty much completely phased out years ago.
Very easy to leave in the bag spot at home after unloading them. Also very easy to not have if you run to the store over lunch or after work unexpectedly (because your eggs went bad) I keep some...
Very easy to leave in the bag spot at home after unloading them.
Also very easy to not have if you run to the store over lunch or after work unexpectedly (because your eggs went bad)
I keep some bags that collapse smaller than an egg in my car or into my typical shoulder bag, but its' imperfect. It's on me, but when the cultural expectation is "i can get bags here" for most of your life, it's a bigger pivot.
It depends on how you do your shopping I suppose. I'd have to bring at least a dozen reusable bags based on how I grocery shop for my family which is a bit of a hassle. In the end though, I...
It depends on how you do your shopping I suppose. I'd have to bring at least a dozen reusable bags based on how I grocery shop for my family which is a bit of a hassle. In the end though, I actually choose no bags most of the time and I just use wheeled crate to transport the food from the car to the house.
Yeah my mom's trip for 6 people is very different than my trip for 2 which is different than my Costco trip which is different than my "we just need a few things" trip. I bought a set of "trolley...
Yeah my mom's trip for 6 people is very different than my trip for 2 which is different than my Costco trip which is different than my "we just need a few things" trip. I bought a set of "trolley bags" that in theory fit in the grocery carts better. I can usually juggle the "need a few things" trip, I have to plan for the bigger ones.
Aside from what everyone else has said, my problem used to be that I'd leave them in the car, and I wouldn't realize that I didn't have them until I was already in line to pay, because that's when...
Aside from what everyone else has said, my problem used to be that I'd leave them in the car, and I wouldn't realize that I didn't have them until I was already in line to pay, because that's when they're needed. Does that mean I'm stupid? Maybe, but it was genuinely an accident, I was really trying to use the reusable bags. At that point the social impact of disrupting the cashier and all the other people in line feels worse than the impact of using a few bags that will get reused for scooping kitty litter anyway.
I don't have that problem anymore now that I don't drive. The bags stay in my purse and I don't need as many because the store is much closer and I go more often.
Exactly, and if you forget, you can still buy the paper bag. I really don't see the problem. If people can't even handle this slight inconvenience in order to safe our environment, then we are...
Exactly, and if you forget, you can still buy the paper bag. I really don't see the problem. If people can't even handle this slight inconvenience in order to safe our environment, then we are really doomed. I can only shake my head about this issue – which in reality should be an absolute non-issue.
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California is just banning plastic bags at grocery stores, including "reusable" plastic bags (that no one actually reuses). They will just use paper bags.
They are also banning "sell by" labels (which are nonstandard and rarely indicative of actual food safety) in order to discourage food waste.
Obligatory preemptive counterargument: every time someone suggests decreasing our use of plastic in favor of something more nominally environmentally friendly, like paper, we hear about how paper bags are actually not good for the environment because something about deforestation and the emissions of the production of the bag.
The deforestation claim is pretty much bunk. The Amazon is being bulldozed for cows, not paper. Modern forestry practices, especially in the northern hemisphere, are decently sustainable.
As for manufacturing, OK: the emissions are on the order of 2x higher relatively, energy use around 3x higher, and water use around... 20x higher. But in absolute terms, a paper bag produces about 5kg of emissions (edit: I kind of don't believe this, see thread below; this seems like a huge overestimation). The average American produces 16 tons (14,515kg) of CO2e per year. So even if you buy 10 paper bags of food per week (seems high to me), every week, that's about 520kg for a whole year, or about 3.5% of a person's total emissions. That's not nothing, but it's also just... not very much. Considering how harmful plastic is in other ways, I don't know how much I care about paper emissions. I think if people are serious about reducing emissions they should stop living in exurbs and stop driving cars so much. And probably not fly. And buy solar panels. And eat less beef. And demand that California change its water rights laws to stop encouraging farmers to waste their water on alfalfa.
I have no problem with high water use as long as it's done in places with a lot of water (and there are many such places in the world). I don't think most paper bags sold in California are produced there. But even if they are, that is something fairly easy to fix with legislation. Just ban the production of water-intensive paper products in places consistently stricken by drought. Yeah yeah economy. Not a technical barrier.
I actually think paper bag production is a reasonable use for CCS tech. CCS gets a lot of hate (fairly) because it's an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels. But all manufacturing will always have some emissions, even for stuff that we can't reasonably replace. If CCS can cut carbon emissions of paper bag pollution by 90% (?!), it's pretty much negligible. (I'm skeptical of that claim, but even a reduction of 50% would be very satisfactory to me.)
The actual environmental impact of paper bags has been going down by itself though. "Between 2007 and 2021, the carbon intensity of a single paper sack was reduced by 28%." Recycling technology has also gotten better, and this new law in California increases the amount of recycled paper in the bags from 40% to 50%.
I'd rather have fewer emissions, but as far as I'm concerned, "environmental harm" is significantly broader than that. I care about the health of the environment and its ecosystems just as much as emissions - and plastic is a huge localized source of environmental damage. Animals eat plastic and die, or don't die but ingest so much microplastic that they drop dead a week later. Also I care about human health, both because I am a human and most people I know are humans. Microplastics never go away and they probably give people 8000 awful health conditions. It's the lead paint of the 21st century.
So this legislation is fine by me. That's 19 billion fewer plastic bags produced per year. I despise the proliferation of plastic garbage and am happy to see it reduced.
I'm all for getting rid of plastic bags, but I will say when I lived somewhere that had banned them was the only time in my life I bought little waste basket liners and those little poop bags for walking your dog since I used the grocery store bags for those things. Most people didn't reuse them so it's a net benefit, but at a personal level it felt a bit funny.
I can very much relate to this, having recently moved to Sweden with 3 cats. I have to buy bags for my litter now, rather than using grocery bags. And any time I buy something that comes in a remotely usable plastic bag, I rinse it out and keep it in a cabinet in my kitchen, and I feel like a little rat hoarding my horrible treasures.
yeah, those are some.of the few uses where plastic bags do indeed make sense. I live somewhere without plastic grocery bags already and don't mind buying them, but I absolutely did use old grocery bags for them when I lived in the US.
https://www.biobagworld.com/us_en/products/household-food-scrap-bags/Compostable%20Drawstring%20Bags?category=138&product_id=298
Certified to compost in a home garden.
I checked their certifications and on reddit and they seem to be garden compostable based on what Ive read? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Whoops these https://www.biobagworld.com/us_en/products/household-food-scrap-bags/Compostable-Tall-Kitchen-Bags-13gal?category=138&product_id=291
Are you suggesting using those in a garage can? I would worry they'll break down before the bag is full.
I don't use bags for compost, I just use a container I can run through the dishwasher.
Well if its just dry bathroom stuff, it will be fine. If its really wet probably after a day or two best to empty.
But mainly the idea was at least one thing you are tossing into the landfill won’t last forever.
I agree with the spirit of what you're saying. However, the only trash can in my house I know only has dry stuff on it is the recycle bin. Different people have different restroom needs. Hygiene products aside, anyone who wears daily contacts is going to have at least some liquid in their trash. So will folks who use makeup remover and haven't yet switched to the reusable rounds.
Anyway, this feels like it's going off topic. I apologize if I come across as argumentative, I like to help folks see things from different perspectives.
No, just think that wouldn’t be an issue. They aren’t like toilet paper. It takes weeks to break down in soil.
I was very annoyed at having to buy small bag liners for the first time. Once I got used to it I realized that they did a better job of not dumping soiled kitty litter all over the floor if you overstuffed them a little.
Climate town is my jam.
Also, as paper bags are, frankly, less effective as bags, this move encourages use of more permanent bags. As such a simple multiplier on emissions might paint an ungenerous climate impact perhaps? As in the results might be less negative than that simple maths....
The main problem with paper is one you haven't mentioned - post-use. If it's recycled, fine. Burned for power in clean incinerators? Super. But if paper goes to landfill, it can leach various nasty chemicals and worse, degrade anerobically to form methane, which is an extremely potent greenhouse gas - 84 times more so than carbon dioxide.
The answer to this is of course to not use landfill, but until that's happening the best course of action is to sell people 100% compostable plastic bags (not PLA held together with starch glue which composts to form microplastics). Plenty of shops where I live will sell you a compostable bag if you've forgotten your own.
Personally I would ban disposable bags altogether. Forgot your bag? Tough. Carry your stuff home in your hands or buy something expensively reusable. People will learn quickly enough to remember a bag. I have one which packs small enough to live on my keyring. It's not that hard.
Per paper bag? that seems absolutely insane, a paper bag weighs < 100g by itself. Especially when plastic bags are essentially carbon capture technology when they are properly disposed of in a landfill.
The cost of improper disposal is obviously high, but I'm not convinced that plastic bag bans at grocery stores are effective at all & not just performative. After all, you always bring plastic grocery bags home because that's where your fridge is.
I would be happy to see plastic bans in things like takeout food, which anecdotally, actually do make up the bulk of litter.
I think about the plastic waste from takeout time to time
The other day I bought an order of black garlic ramen from a local noodle shop, and I got the order separated into the broth (in a quart plastic container), the noodles (in this little circular two compartment container), and the add-ins (in the upper part of the container)
The plasticware was honestly nice enough to where I was a bit confused and thought it was Tupperware meant to be reused. If it didn’t seem so wasteful, I would have thought it was cool
I suspect the public at large is not going to be happy to transition away from a system where take out food can be more sustainably packaged, nonetheless businesses that rely on take out orders packaged into wasteful little systems like that
Personally I support trying to change that through regulation, but it’s going to be a culture shock for many people I suspect
When I lived in Zurich we had this one Thai take out that would actually "rent" you a metal container the first time you order from them for the equivalent of 10 USD. Every time you order after the first time you would give back the container from last time to the delivery guy. It is such an elegant solution. If all the delivery restaurants would use the same containers, it would be even better. And if you are "done" with that restaurant for good they also buy the container back from you.
It was a very elegant container with two levels stacked on top, so one compartment held the sauce and the other compartment held the rice for example. So versatile, completely leak proof, and with a comfortable handle on top to hold it like a little basket.
There's a company that does something like this here in Berlin at several different restaurants that deliver. Not enough of the places that I've taken part, bc iirc it's not totally free, but it's an approach that has a lot of promise when it comes to making takeout more eco-friendly.
Noodle shop containers (along with thai shop containers) are premium! I know some folks that basically use nothing else for their personal food storage.
I use those takout containers and glass containers exclusively! There's a reason they're beloved in the restaurant industry.
Plastic and Styrofoam have been banned for takeout where I live for years. If you order pho takeout, you'll get a waxed paper container with a kid for the broth and either a waxed paper box or a compressed paper clamshell for the rest. Everything will easily smash flat for recycling or composting.
I'm sorry to tell you that paper boxes are lined with a thin layer of plastic for waterproofing. Unfortunately wax does not hold up to heat.
Well that's disappointing.
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It does seem high and I think I don't believe it. There is probably some confusion with units. I also think that a large portion of those emissions are just from fossil fuel energy sources, not a chemical process in the paper production itself (which would have a comparatively modest impact). If our energy is coming from green sources, the emissions are a lot lower.
I also see different figures elsewhere. This article says "From 2018 to 2021, this course was continued: the impact per tonne of sack kraft paper was improved by 5% – from 442 kg CO2e to 421 kg CO2e."
That would make the CO2e of a single paper bag more like 0.4kg, not 5kg.
This source puts GHG emissions of 1000 paper bags at 0.0374... tons of CO2e? So 1 paper bag would be 0.0374kg CO2e, which is another order of magnitude down.
I don't know which source is correct or where the inconsistency originates. But if we're talking an order of magnitude (or two!!!) lower emissions than I originally stated... I do not care about paper bag emissions in the slightest.
I'm not convinced that landfills are the end-all of sustainable trash storage. I remarked on another thread recently that I seriously question the structural integrity of landfill infrastructure over a long timescale. As far as I can tell, the production of more plastics means the dissemination of more microplastics, which are harmful for a variety of reasons.
I would also be very pleased to see plastic bans for takeout containers. I think people should be expected to bring their own containers to a restaurant if they want takeout, and restaurants should charge for containers. I don't know what material is best as a replacement, but takeout food will go directly into the refrigerator within like 1 hour, so I don't think it has to be super durable.
The city council banned plastic bags in grocery stores pre COVID on Seattle, after failing to do so via a vote. I think the training had something to do with turtles or orcas.
Outside of grocery stores plastic bags were still used. Restaurants, clothing stores, I can't remember if target still had them or not.
This did indeed get people using reusable bags at the grocery store, but I wasn't the only one who was cranky about it. If you forgot your reusable bags or didn't bring enough of them, you were stock with paper bags you had to pay for. In an area with a rainy season, this is a terrible backup, especially in a city where they're trying to get folks to drive less. Paper bags gradually melt in the rain.
During lockdown of course reusable bags weren't allowed on most stores because we didn't yet know how COVID spread. So folks got out of the habit of bringing bags again. Now the stores have those heavy plastic bags for 8 cents or something that are supposed to be reusable.
The entire thing feels like a huge mess to me.
I think this is good legislation. I also think it shouldn’t just apply to grocery stores, but progress is progress. Plastic bags are almost completely banned where I live, with a few exceptions. It was strange at first, but it’s ultimately not as impactful as some might think.
Stores offer paper bags, but they charge you for it. So, you learn to keep a few re-usable bags in your car. In some stores, such as hardware stores, they’ll offer you a box to carry your items in. Those boxes are just the boxes they received items in, thereby reusing an ultimately recyclable object. And life goes on.
I used to have one of those plastic bag storage devices that resemble large tissue boxes before living where I do now. It’s true that I used to reuse them for various things (dog poop, small trash cans, etc.). Now when I need a plastic bag for a specific need, I have to be more deliberate. But I think that’s a decent trade-off. If that is, in some way, inefficient, it’s better than the over-use of flimsy plastic bags.
I wish more places would commit to this. It really doesn’t have the kind of impact on your day-to-day life like some seem to think it does.
Archive: https://archive.is/sCnyy
Standardizing labels sounds good, but I did a brief search and couldn't find recent info about which bill it is or what it actually does.
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Looks like AB-660, “Food and beverage products: labeling: quality dates, safety dates, and sell-by dates.”
The bill allows the phrases “Use by” and “Use by or Freeze by” to indicate safety and “Best if Used by” and “Best if Used or Frozen by” to indicate subjective quality.
I’d rather they just ban them altogether. It’s pretty obvious when food has gone bad, and any label like this still contributes to unnecessary food waste. But I’ll take it over the current system. Now that it’ll be standardized, people can at least be educated about it.
There should really be federal legislation for this.
It's not always obvious that food has gone bad especially before it goes in your mouth, and it's very handy for folks like me, who can lose track of things in the fridge or cupboard for extended periods of time, to know how old something is.
I opened a package of cookies that my office had lying around for guests, they'd been giving them away due to being just past "expiration." Soft Oreos are unpleasant when unintentional. I've also had the unpleasant experience of putting food in my mouth and then finding signs of its demise in the container after... Mold in particular. It's the sort of thing that will have me not eating a food for six months.
Education around what those labels mean, absolutely. And standardizing what "Best By" and "Use By" and such mean, also good. But some of us do really need a guideline. Idk when I bought my eggs. Which package is newer? Shoot, how old is that salsa exactly?
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So this is part of the problem - you are buying too much food, not eating it, and then not knowing when it's gone bad. This haphazard approach to food waste is incredibly common. It's inefficient - a waste of money and resources, and contributes to completely unnecessary physical waste (production emissions, packaging, etc.).
People are locked in a psychology that they're incapable of telling whether food is good because they've become so emotionally accustomed to these labels. As children we are no longer taught to identify the quality of food by its appearance or smell, so we significantly overbuy food... has any of it gone bad? Well, who cares, that one is past its "best by" date - toss it.
Knowing when food is bad is somewhat of a base human instinct - and that sense is enormously heightened when the food in question is seriously dangerous. Humans have, for the entirety of history, had to eat food nearly every day. We have an evolutionary reaction to food that is obviously harmful to us. If you have ever smelled rotting flesh - which could totally get you sick - you will involuntarily wrinkle your nose, gag, or otherwise have a physical value of repulsion. It's disgusting. The same applies on a minor scale to, say, dairy products that are a little past their prime - it's very easy to tell when milk has begun to sour (the appearance, the consistency, and the smell). You can smell the sulfur when eggs are rotting, you can see the ugly white or green mold on a piece of bread, etc.
We have pretty much completely stopped teaching children how to check for food quality, including mold. It's not hard to teach and not hard to remember. The learned experience of ingesting a slightly old piece of bread makes it especially clear. Yes this can be a little bit unpleasant - but it's a strong incentive to actually maintain an organized kitchen and not waste dozens of pounds of food a year.
In some cases these labels can encourage people to ingest food that is actually not in good condition. There are, and will always be, some attributes of food quality that a label fundamentally cannot tell you. If you left the milk out for twelve hours, the label does not know. Will drinking that kill you? No, but it might have soured. If you're exclusively glancing at the label, and not using your eyes or nose to look for warning signs, you might absent-mindedly drink it, taste it, and then be repulsed. Whoops.
Many foods today are so heavily processed that they don't go bad for weeks or months at a time - though they can generally last significantly longer than the labels claim. This is nice and all, but people don't seem to be aware of how this affects their kitchen maintenance habits. We just forget about food that's been there for a while; it becomes invisible. So we overbuy more, creating more waste, and the whole process repeats.
There are theoretically legitimate use-cases for these labels, like if someone is blind and also has no sense of smell and also has no sense of taste and also lives alone... I don't think that's a lot of people, but it could be someone. (I don't know how someone blind would read current labels!) But I think there has to be a much more obvious distinction between "this might be a little sour after a week" and "this will give you food poisoning after a week."
If we're going to have labels on our food, "pleasantness" should not be one of them. If you eat stale bread, that's your fault. Actual safety warnings should be a lot more explicit, and closer to the actual expiration of the product:
And they should be written in braille. I once helped a blind woman go through her pantry to clear out expired products. She had a great sense of smell and could have done it herself that way, so she was still succumbing to this social pressure to rely on the written word for everything. But I guess for blind people who don't, this is helpful.
Some food products already have labels along these lines, but they usually don't refer to actual qualities of the food, instead more stuff like "Don't ingest if you've left it on the counter for more than 15 seconds," which is usually a very conservative figure and also doesn't tell you anything useful, it just encourages waste.
I think most able-bodied people should be ignoring "best by" and "use by" labels for most food products, because most such people have the physical and mental capability to tell whether food is bad.
I wrote up a lot, and deleted it, and I"m just going to say that
A. I'm generally considered able-bodied but the ADHD tax is a documented thing that means I have to work hard not to waste food and that doesn't mean I'm successful.
B. "Pleasantness" is something that matters more to brands. If a customer buys Jif Peanut Butter, forgets about it for 3 years and it's in bad condition and tastes bad, that customer bad mouths Jif to all their friends. For as much as there's "it's a plot to make you throw away good food" it's also just a plain old "we want customers to have a positive experience with our food."
C. I'd fully agree that what dates are provided should be written in Braille and be scannable and read out load by a device/app
D. I think a "Dangerous by" date would cause worse waste because for liability reasons, corporations will lean earlier if after the date is actually dangerous
I am not so optimistic about your perspective on how humans can inherently identify food that is unsafe. It contradicts centuries of food-borne illnesses. Plenty of it can indeed make us gag, but food can look bad before it is bad and can look good while being very unsafe.
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This is a very reasonable response.
Thanks! At first glance, this looks like a minor change.
It sounds like you haven’t thought through the implications in the food industry of not having dates on packages and the things that can go wrong. Sometimes food doesn’t sell, it gets stuck in warehouses at distributors, etc. There is financial incentive to sell it anyway. Here is an example of a store that ignored the dates:
Save Mart to Pay $1.6M to Resolve Claims of Selling Expired Products
I don’t think it’s always wrong to sell food that’s gotten a little old and it doesn’t sound like it was a health issue in this case, but the consumer should be aware and it should be sold at a discount. With no dates at all, some retailers (or their distributors) will take advantage, because they can. This is what product labeling is all about, to tell you things that aren’t immediately apparent.
We have bought stale bread before (from Target) and since then I always check dates. I’m perhaps a little pickier than some about this.
Quality is also not immediately apparent to a store employee, so putting dates on food packages is a practical measure for quality control in a supply chain, even though it’s fairly arbitrary. It’s not like they’re going to be opening packages and tasting the food.
More generally, consumers care about quality and not just whether food is edible. We pay higher prices for quality. If the food doesn’t meet the usual standard, someone is getting ripped off. In economics, there is the notion of a “market for lemons” which is that if quality is variable and buyers can’t tell what they’ll get, they eventually learn not to pay as much, even for high-quality products.
Yes, and I'll add that retailers rely on those labels to know when products need to be pulled on shelves. If labels were eliminated, it's not just that retailers would take advantage (even though they would), they would no longer have any capability to ensure that unsafe food was off of shelves.
Retailers don't know how old a box of cereal is by looking at some system. They have no idea if a box has been on the shelf for a day or three months, which is why they rely on stockers regularly checking those dates. In their systems, they track their current stock by quantity for item type, not by each individual item. Removing sell by labels would make them somehow develop their own tracking system that may or may not be accurate. Many of them would likely just not do anything and cross their fingers and hope for the best.
The dates on those packages are primarily for the retailers, not the consumers.
I actually didn't even think about the fact that I manage to save a lot of money by buying food near its expiration date! Removing them would cost me $
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OK.
How do you think we should best reduce the amount of food waste generated by consumers?
I think it’s quite difficult because it’s often a psychological problem. People are often not very rational about what they buy. Hoarding is an extreme case, but food piling up in cabinets or going bad in refrigerators is common and not new. There are songs about it.
And this is in people’s houses - it’s very personal space.
But when the food is already paid for, the environment impact already happened and it’s just taking up personal space. It’s not really anyone else’s problem. I think people can decide on their own when to clean up?
I see food piling up as a symptom of buying too much or buying the wrong things. The waste is secondary, and eventually you run out of space, so it reaches equilibrium. (Except for hoarders.)
So, I’m not sure I would focus on food waste in particular. What larger problems are you interested in that it’s related to?
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I'm concerned about food waste because of its requisite environmental impact. If food expiration labels (for example) encourage people to hoard or overbuy food, which to some extent they do, that is an upstream/systemic cause of overproduction, which is a waste of resources.
From an environmental standpoint I don't think I care a whole lot about the waste of the literal food itself. Food biodegrades. The only problem I have with the waste of food matter itself is the municipal headache of garbage management and disposal; the more food that is wasted, the more critters are getting into garbage and the more homeless people are ripping open bags to get at that food, etc., which means trash gets absolutely everywhere and streets are filthy. That's not so much an environmental impact as much as a social problem.
But if food is being thrown out without being eaten, all the packaging etc is also being thrown out, having been produced for no reason; supply chains are being overbuilt; farms are being overbuilt and therefore that land is not wilded, etc. By overbuying food, people are paying money to emit greenhouse gases for something that does not benefit them or society as a whole.
From an equity standpoint I see food waste as a completely pointless consumption pattern. Food insecurity is a real problem that I witness multiple times per day, every day, without fail. At best, it is careless for individuals to not give a hoot about how much food they buy (and waste) -- this level of waste is really compounded by American individualism "I do what I want with my money and you can't tell me that it's bad for the world" -- and at worst it is cruel for society to encourage it through its various systems and cultural practices.
If we can design the process of purchasing, acquiring, and storing food such that people simply do not waste food, we should probably do that. This is why I am interested in things like changes to expiration date labels. I am content with standardization+education but would prefer a more comprehensive solution. Education is a terribly inefficient and high-effort way to make a large number of people do things on a long timescale.
On an institutional level, the way we use expiration labels encourages grocery stores to throw out a ridiculous amount of perfectly edible and suitable food. These dates are extremely arbitrary. If the law can be written in such a way that bans them from doing that except when it's an actual safety risk, that would be ideal - because there are many, many better uses for safe and edible food than being dumped in a landfill.
Here’s another perspective on it: maybe we should ask why the food got old enough that the expiration date even matters? Why wasn’t it used before?
Sometimes someone bought the food and it turns out they didn’t care for it. A lot of food is cheap enough that people buy it on a whim, to see if they would like it. Or, they buy food for others, who don’t like it. Or, they liked it at first, so they bought a lot, but got tired of it. Or, they bought it for one recipe and never needed it again. Or maybe they overestimated how many people show up for a party and how much those people would eat? It’s typical for people to offer very generous amounts of food because they like the vibe of having a lot of food around. We use the word “generous” a lot when it comes to food, and from an efficiency standpoint, it often means “way too much” and “more than is healthy.”
(Of course, there are leftovers, so it’s not all wasted.)
The safety risk is besides the point if they’re not going to eat it anyway. The longer it’s on the shelf, the less likely it is that they’d eat it at all, and often throwing stuff out is finally admitting that it was a mistake. To not waste it, it would need to go to a food bank or something so that someone else who actually wants it could eat it.
Similarly, when a grocery stores buys food, this is a bet that consumers will like it, and sometimes they bet wrong, and it doesn’t sell. That’s a common reason why food stays on the shelf until it expires - it’s a specialty item and it turns out nobody wanted it.
This is an inventory management problem. Product that doesn’t sell takes up shelf space that could have been used instead for products that do sell. An efficiently-run business is going to get rid of product that doesn’t sell well before it expires. It will even get rid of it if it never expires, like old books or CD’s, back when people still bought CD’s.
So, a sell-by date acts as a deadline for getting rid of stuff. There are ways to clear inventory by putting things on sale, or by selling it cheap to another store that will try to sell it, or donating it.
All of these things could be done before the deadline, when there is a deadline. A well-run business will meet the deadline. A deadline, even an arbitrary one, can serve as motivation. But sometimes it doesn’t work and people lose track of things.
So, from this perspective, shelf-stable food reaching the sell-by date and being thrown out is a symptom of a buying mistake and/or disorganization, and changing the deadline or removing it doesn’t fix the disorganization.
And it’s interesting that Walmart and Costco became big in part by doing inventory management better (in different ways). If you sell everything you buy, it’s not waste, from a store’s perspective.
Consumers are not the largest problem nor the easiest problem to solve. To reduce food waste, we should prevent stores and restaurants dtom disposing of perfectly good, unsold food. Maybe require it to be donated, or charge fees for commercial food disposal. All the changes I can come up with are very detrimental to the business but I don't really care about businesses, so that's my bias.
"Ugly" but perfectly good, safe foods, should appear on shelves with a little sign explaining that it's fine. If I see discolored or misshapen produce, I don't avoid it because I care what it looks like, I avoid it because I don't know if it's actually okay to eat. Currently a lot of this produce is tossed before it even hits the shelves.
As far as the customer goes, there are so many reasons that food might be purchased and thrown out that it's hard to address. Recently we had to throw out a whole bunch of fresh fruit and meat, a real shame, because literally hours after we bought it he had to go to the hospital and we didn't come back until after it had gone bad. Nothing can reasonably be done about that.
Another time a bunch of food got thrown out, it was after my mother in law came to visit. She bought a bunch of stuff that she likes and that we would never eat. When she left a lot of stuff just got tossed. On my end it wasn't even preference, I'm allergic to coconut and I'm a vegetarian and that covered a good chunk of what she bought. There's not really anything anyone other than my mother in law and my husband could do about that, and they're not going to.
I still have a kilogram of oats that she bought sitting in my pantry, I intend to make them into oat milk, but I use such small amounts and it goes bad so quickly that I'm nervous to do it. It's probably going to end up the victim of irony, going bad because I was afraid to ruin it.
Really? My understanding is that those fruit were transformed into sauce, juice, or fruit morsel or into prepared dishes.
Apparently my information is out of date. According to the source this article used, "ugly foods" have gotten much more popular in recent years.
I think this still doesn't apply to restaurants?
Also, it might not apply to Target, who primarily sell non food related items?
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The text says:
So it would probably cover Target, but not restaurants.
I wouldn't have exempted businesses with low revenue if I had written the law, but I think that the wording of any of those five stipulations would cover the vast majority of retail establishments that sell food.
Hmmm, you could argue that also includes restaurants with a booze license that also offers food to go with...
When I moved to California nearly ten years ago, environmental policy wasn't high on my list of reasons. But since then, I've become more and more aware of how the modern society has a sort of implicit, unknown 'best by' date when it breaches planetary boundaries. Now I'm glad to live in a state that sets out environmental policies that tend to align with what I value.
I hope lawmakers target food packaging soon. I've been trying to go plastic free wherever I can in my life, and lack of choices when it comes to food packaging has been disheartening, not to mention all other sorts of everyday goods.
[Goes Googling.] Huh, there are a few zero waste, bring-your-own-containers stores in my city. I wasn't able to find any last time I looked. Gotta check them out.
In the UK the government added a 10p charge onto plasticbags and basically overnight plastic bag use dropped and everyone just started using reusable bags / carried bags with enough space for extra groceries. I belive the charge is now 30p but I'm not sure as I haven't purchased one in a few years. I belive there has been something like a 95%+ drop in the use of single use plastic bags because of it.
I'm shocked that we were ahead of this curve in Colorado, and are stricter about our plastic bag ban-- there's no exceptions based on what is being sold or the size of the store here, afaik. The grocery store I work at has paper bags still (that do cost the $0.10/bag still), but it seems the majority of our customers (in a suburb that leans conservative, in the heart of local oil and gas production country) have adapted to either bringing their own or just carrying out their stuff just fine, despite the grousing when this first started for about a month or so.
The real surprising one is that Walmart ditched single use bags entirely (no paper ones) after this ban, I would have thought they would fight tooth and nail against this.
I wish we'd see some action on food containers, although I have noticed more and more places going to (industrially) compostable containers in the last couple years, at the least.
Same here in New York, we have abandoned the single use plastic bags for the paper bags (the surge charge is the same here) and for the people to bring their own bags. Or to just carry out their own grocery goods or consumer goods out to their vehicles.
And since the ban on the single use bags, my family had made a (what is essentially) a stockpile of usable bags that we use, along with some insulated bags (that we had before the ban) for the more temperature sensitive goods, like meat and dairy products, during the warm months.
Yeah, having just moved up here and making a stop at a liquor store (alcohol being oddly expensive here) I just left my reusable bags in the car as I had grown accustomed to as my previous state pretty much always bagged liquor store purchases in a paper bag. I just carried it out to my car instead of purchasing a paper bag, as did others, but it was odd to me to just walk out of a liquor store with two bottles of alcohol in hand and not a bag.
It's funny I've literally never seen a grocery store do paper bags and I've only every heard the classic "paper or plastic" in cartoons.
We only ever had plastic bags and they were pretty much completely phased out years ago.
How hard is it to bring a bag when you know you're going shopping? Humans are dumb.
Very easy to leave in the bag spot at home after unloading them.
Also very easy to not have if you run to the store over lunch or after work unexpectedly (because your eggs went bad)
I keep some bags that collapse smaller than an egg in my car or into my typical shoulder bag, but its' imperfect. It's on me, but when the cultural expectation is "i can get bags here" for most of your life, it's a bigger pivot.
It depends on how you do your shopping I suppose. I'd have to bring at least a dozen reusable bags based on how I grocery shop for my family which is a bit of a hassle. In the end though, I actually choose no bags most of the time and I just use wheeled crate to transport the food from the car to the house.
Yeah my mom's trip for 6 people is very different than my trip for 2 which is different than my Costco trip which is different than my "we just need a few things" trip. I bought a set of "trolley bags" that in theory fit in the grocery carts better. I can usually juggle the "need a few things" trip, I have to plan for the bigger ones.
Sometimes people forget or decide spontaneously that they want to buy something. If you’re on foot, maybe you don’t always carry a shopping bag.
Aside from what everyone else has said, my problem used to be that I'd leave them in the car, and I wouldn't realize that I didn't have them until I was already in line to pay, because that's when they're needed. Does that mean I'm stupid? Maybe, but it was genuinely an accident, I was really trying to use the reusable bags. At that point the social impact of disrupting the cashier and all the other people in line feels worse than the impact of using a few bags that will get reused for scooping kitty litter anyway.
I don't have that problem anymore now that I don't drive. The bags stay in my purse and I don't need as many because the store is much closer and I go more often.
Exactly, and if you forget, you can still buy the paper bag. I really don't see the problem. If people can't even handle this slight inconvenience in order to safe our environment, then we are really doomed. I can only shake my head about this issue – which in reality should be an absolute non-issue.