This is a welcome sign and good news. Diageo is huge.
https://www.good.is/articles/guinness-beer-removing-plastic
https://www.good.is/articles/guinness-beer-removing-plastic
Diageo getting rid of all plastic packaging starting with Guinness
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It's nice to see a company doing what they believe is right. Actions will always speak louder than words.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Good news, but small potatoes, when one takes account of the market share of Guinness and Smithwicks. Without doing an ounce of research on it, I’ll bet Coca Cola moves more single-use plastic packaging per week, than Guinness has done in the last decade.
For certain Coca-Cola and Pepsico are the major producers and worst offenders, but the more major companies that step to the plate the more pressure on the largest to change their ways. In the very least Coke and Pepsi should be creating and paying for global recycling of their ubiquitous packaging, especially the plastic bottles.
FYI Diageo also has Tanqueray, Johnie Walker, Smirnoff, Capt. Walker, Baileys, Crown Royal, Don Julio, J&B, and many others in their stable. They are also becoming big in China and Asia. With a $90 billion market cap they are not a small company.
FYI Diageo also has Tanqueray, Johnie Walker, Smirnoff, Capt. Walker, Baileys, Crown Royal, Don Julio, J&B, and many others in their stable. They are also becoming big in China and Asia. With a $90 billion market cap they are not a small company.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
True, and I think we are seeing this happening: https://www.news.com.au/finance/bus...9/news-story/a91d8c1a99fd51c993917f66acc2c046
Yeah, but we already know that the total sum of Diageo product packaging is less than 5% single use plastics. For a sense of scale, let’s put some numbers to my former point:
Diageo plans to cut 400 British Tonnes of plastic per year, across the full suite of brands you mention above. Meanwhile, Coca Cola Co. is using approximately 3,000,000 British Tonnes of plastic each year, to produce 108,000,000,000 bottles.
Coca Cola is putting out single-use plasics at a rate almost 10,000 times greater than that by which Diageo is reducing their usage. It’s essentially one guy in Los Angeles deciding to quit smoking, and thinking it’s going to help their smog problem.
https://www.plasticsnewseurope.com/...ls-total-annual-plastic-packaging-consumption
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...geo-beer-plastic-free-packaging-a8869941.html
It’s not a bad thing, and maybe the public awareness these stories generate will sway the big boys to hop on that bandwagon... but Diageo was never a major player in plastics.
Eh, they are doing what they believe is right for their business, and maybe for the environment. I'm not going to pee in their Cheerios. It's more authentic than a company talking about the environment, maybe donating to a charity, and then doing nothing else.
As the Australian article points out, it's about changing public awareness and opinion. Coke, Pepsi, Nestle's are getting the message. In some countries, they already have a bad rap so they have to try harder to regain trust. It's a serious issue, especially where some of their plants are depleting critical local aquifers and people's wells are going dry. I know when we were in India we warned not to drink any of Coke bottled products including their water.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Agreed. This is the next front in the battlefield of environmental awareness, IMO. The war over energy independence is destined to rage on awhile longer, while this particular problem may have more immediately-realizable solutions.
I think I'd rather see more attention on energy usage personally. The average house uses 900+ kWh every month. I'd be curious how that energy use is allocated.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
900?!? I keep getting these...
![[Hearth.com] Diageo getting rid of all plastic packaging starting with Guinness](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/243/243629-7e03638cba18c923c9bd7a15b218a6f5.jpg?hash=fV1pqgny9d "[Hearth.com] Diageo getting rid of all plastic packaging starting with Guinness")
I blame the Christmas lights, we are normally closer to 2000 kWh/month. Our primary heat is wood and fuel oil, but we do have two minisplits covering my shop and studio (both kept at 55F) and one little section of electric baseboard in a bathroom we seldom use (also kept at 55F). I think our biggest energy hogs are the dehumidifiers, well pump, and a wife who only knows how to turn lights and TVs on (she hasn’t learned that switches go both ways).
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Industries are changing. Often because it makes economic sense to control their waste and it's good PR. This is particularly important with investors that are putting increasing pressure on corporations to be more environmentally responsible. This is percolating to the top at many shareholder meetings. Note call for more social responsibility in this letter last fall from Larry Fink, the head of Blackrock which manages $6.3 trillion 
in assets.
"Without a sense of purpose, no company, either public or private, can achieve its full potential,"
https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter
The counterpoint to this is greenwashing, which at times is well-meaning and at other times just deceptive. Calvin Klein's recent campaign promoting clothing out of recycled plastics is an example of a well-intentioned campaign that is based on the wrong premise.
in assets."Without a sense of purpose, no company, either public or private, can achieve its full potential,"
https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter
The counterpoint to this is greenwashing, which at times is well-meaning and at other times just deceptive. Calvin Klein's recent campaign promoting clothing out of recycled plastics is an example of a well-intentioned campaign that is based on the wrong premise.
And New Zealand just banned single-use plastic bags. Retailers have 6 months to use up stock. This is the 15th country to ban single-use plastic bags.
You guys are off grid compared to some!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...e-for-a-year-than-the-average-american-report
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Not to be argumentative, but what good does banning single use plastic really do? Is it just waste that's the problem? Or is it carbon? We need to ask ourselves what the goal is and do our actions achieve our goals?
Paper bags would need to be used 43 times to equal the environmental impact of a single use plastic bag. At an hour long dinner, I needed 3 paper straws because they failed. Is that really better than a plastic one?
Paper bags would need to be used 43 times to equal the environmental impact of a single use plastic bag. At an hour long dinner, I needed 3 paper straws because they failed. Is that really better than a plastic one?
It's definitely about getting it out of the waste stream. We use an estimated over one million plastic bags each minute! Somewhere between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used and discarded EVERY year. Very little is recycled. They are so ubiquitous that they are ending up in the stomachs of sea birds, fish, turtles and sea mammals like whales, seal, and porpoises. The plastic in plastic bags is essentially forever. They are toxic as the final do start to break down The cost of the waste problem is huge and rarely factored in. Paper bags are not the ultimate alternative either, though they hold more and are recycled more. They also break down fairly quickly and are non-toxic. But, I don't like the idea of most of our paper coming from trees. There are alternatives like bamboo, flax, hemp and wheat straw that are much more quickly renewable. And don't get me going on the crazy bleaching process that we've become addicted to.
A good canvas, hemp or jute shopping bag is a much better alternative. It will be good for years and when it is eventually disposed of it will degrade safely. And if you have a plastic bag from the grocery store, wash it out and reuse it. Also, encourage the store to get involved in a recycling program for plastic bags. One of our local grocery stores does this, regardless of where you got the bag. Remember that the plastics boom is a recent phenomenon. It did not exist 60-70 yrs ago and people shopped for groceries then, just like today.
The issue is also about carbon. Most current plastics are made from fossil fuel. The production of 1 lb of polyethylene (PET or LDPE), requires the equivalent of 2 lb of oil for energy and raw material. Then there is the CO2 made during production and during incineration if that happens. Alternatively, there are now bio-based plastics that do biodegrade into safe organic elements. We've been testing out some and they do the job, some better than others.
A good canvas, hemp or jute shopping bag is a much better alternative. It will be good for years and when it is eventually disposed of it will degrade safely. And if you have a plastic bag from the grocery store, wash it out and reuse it. Also, encourage the store to get involved in a recycling program for plastic bags. One of our local grocery stores does this, regardless of where you got the bag. Remember that the plastics boom is a recent phenomenon. It did not exist 60-70 yrs ago and people shopped for groceries then, just like today.
The issue is also about carbon. Most current plastics are made from fossil fuel. The production of 1 lb of polyethylene (PET or LDPE), requires the equivalent of 2 lb of oil for energy and raw material. Then there is the CO2 made during production and during incineration if that happens. Alternatively, there are now bio-based plastics that do biodegrade into safe organic elements. We've been testing out some and they do the job, some better than others.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
All grocery stores around here have repositories for recycling used plastic bags in their vestibules. We recycle them at home, though. They go in with the plastic bottles, and such. Not sure exactly what the waste company does with them, when they pick up our recycling, but that’s a problem beyond my horizon.
If our stores were to eliminate plastic bags, I’d not find it any crisis. It won’t take folks more than a few weeks to adapt to bringing their own bags with them, I think. I used to work in Europe 20 years ago, and they were already in the mode of bringing their own plastic tubs to the grocery with them, even back then. This is not a huge sacrifice, not all social change is bad.
If our stores were to eliminate plastic bags, I’d not find it any crisis. It won’t take folks more than a few weeks to adapt to bringing their own bags with them, I think. I used to work in Europe 20 years ago, and they were already in the mode of bringing their own plastic tubs to the grocery with them, even back then. This is not a huge sacrifice, not all social change is bad.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Right, I don't think that the carbon reasoning hold water. Disposal is an issue, I agree. Yet, single use plastic bags have the smallest carbon footprint on a per bag basis. Every choice mitigates or exacerbates an area of pollution. You just need to pick which one you care about more and make decisions based on that.
Having that choice taken away from me isn't social change. It's something else entirely.
Not a smaller carbon footprint than not being used at all. And I don't believe they have a smaller carbon footprint than some of the biobags that have been developed.
Well, the good news that 187 nations are gearing up to directly address the overwhelming plastics waste problem. The bad news is that the US is one of the few countries not participating.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...ts-approved-but-not-by-united-states/11105140
Plastics pollution is a very big global problem. It's good to see most nations taking a strong first step toward addressing the waste problems created by this industry.
https://www.axios.com/global-plastic-problem-immense-03e67fcb-f505-45f1-8f39-4b1065e90a59.html
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...ts-approved-but-not-by-united-states/11105140
Plastics pollution is a very big global problem. It's good to see most nations taking a strong first step toward addressing the waste problems created by this industry.
https://www.axios.com/global-plastic-problem-immense-03e67fcb-f505-45f1-8f39-4b1065e90a59.html
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