this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
487 points (98.4% liked)
science
22385 readers
559 users here now
A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.
rule #1: be kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I wonder why we shifted away from things like waxed paper milk cartons(like the small ones you'd get in school) and waxed butcher paper?
Is waxed paper/cardboard product really that much more expensive than plastic in terms of packaging?
Here in Germany, all milk is still distributed in cardboard packages
you mean cardboard packages with plastic linings ?
They are a fucking nightmare to recycle. You'll be lucky if they get burnt and I mean that.
Yep. You can get it composted quickly enough, you can get the plastic film out of the composting bin, but the microplastics are already seeped in and contaminated the biomass.
Yeah, but the inner lining of tetrapacks is plastic
Because wax production has numerous negative impacts on the environment: higher energy costs (which lead to higher product costs), deforestation (in case of soy or palm based wax), impact on bee population (in case of bee wax), etc.
Plastics are just better materials for pretty much everything.