Each bar is wrapped in cellophane, which are then wrapped in the normal outer packaging. To make the 4 pack, they simply took 2x two packs and put them on a cardboard tray,and then wrapped those.

I don’t think I’ve ever gone through so much unwrapping for candy.

  • itsAsin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    i have recently become very aware of and disgusted by the the amount of plastic waste i make.

    every single goddammed thing is covered in it. it’s obscene and i am ashamed.

    • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      Don’t blame yourself for something that is the fault of massive corporations.

      Not your fault there are few, good alternatives. By all means, if switching to more ethical products makes you feel better, don’t let me stop you, but this is a problem that needs government regulation to solve.

      • br3d@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        But the government regulation will never come without a LOT of voters feeling very unhappy, so perhaps don’t tell people they shouldn’t feel unhappy about the situation?

        • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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          8 months ago

          I guess I dodn’t make myself clear. People should be angry, but they should point that anger at these massive corporations who keep distributing everything in single-use plastic containers, even when there are friendlier alternatives.

          People also need education about greenwashing and how to detect it.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      8 months ago

      There are private companies that do recycle plastic film. I’m in the PNW and I use Ridwell, and it’s helped a lot. I still aim for Reduce first, try to not use plastic when possible, but with food that’s difficult. Reuse obviously, and then Recycle as my last resort, and Ridwell is good with that. If you’re in the PNW and are interested, I think I have discount codes since I’m a member, just DM me if interested

        • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          What do they do with the plastic?

          Recycling companies have been known to sit.ply export it to another country with worse regulations and dump in the landfill. You should try to find out where their plastic goes and what happens to it. You can’t really just trust that recycling companies are doing things right.

          • KnightontheSun@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            They break the styrofoam down right there and make new material. I am not sure if they do everything on premise, but you can see it happening right there with some of it.

          • seang96@spgrn.com
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            8 months ago

            If they are wanting recycling materials with no cash transactions. Those dumps in other countries probably require payment to use their services, so I assume they wouldn’t want it if they were paying to ship it across the world to throw it in another dump right?

            • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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              8 months ago

              Recycling companies get subsidized by the government in a lot of places. They don’t need to charge when they get paid with taxpayer dollars.

              • seang96@spgrn.com
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                8 months ago

                Eh good point… there needs to be a bit more regulation over all these industries so the government pays for actual proper disposal rather than dumped elsewhere for more $.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Terracycle must be a competitor.

        Have a friend who puts the majority of her focus on another R: Refuse! Boba tea shop says they can’t fill her reusable mason jar? No boba for her.

        She holds onto her trash, and at the end of one year, had half a mason jar full. You could make out one thing in it: a luggage tag from mandatory business trip. Amazing!

        • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          And then a billionaire gets in their private jet, and in just 5 seconds of flight generates 8000 times more carbon emissions than she’s saved in her entire life.

          Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration.

    • CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’m also aware of the amount of plastic waste that passes through my hands.

      The difference here being: i notice what is necessary and how much of it is useless extra added on by the manufacturer for advertisement purposes.

      The latter is usually 50% and even as bad as 80% in a lot of cases.

      I’m not ashamed, i’m dissapointed they are allowed to keep doing this while i’m forced to make all kind of changes (i use forced because they artificially increase the price to stop us from doing things)

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Order literally anything from china. Each part in a Ziploc, then grouped in a Ziploc, in a box with bubble or balloon wrap, and/or styrofoam, then like 8 miles of yellow packing tape so you have no idea where to open from, and maybe another box or garbage bag layer with more tape, then the packing slip sleeve and more tape over that.

  • Neato@ttrpg.network
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    8 months ago

    What did we package things in before disposable plastic became ubiquitous? I don’t think I was alive then. Or did we just have a lot less small and single serving products?

    • Shadow@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Wax paper, or just paper, or tin foil.

      Like Cadbury creme eggs used to just be wrapped in foil, now they’re plastic. <- Apparently this is only in Canada since 2015. TIL.

    • thehatfox@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Many things didn’t used to be packaged at all, they were sold loose in bulk. The shop would put them in a paper bag at purchase.

      • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        Come to think of it, nowadays you can still buy certain things in bulk, but a packaged option exists too. You could carefully choose and weigh the individual potatoes you like, or you could just pick up a bag that was prepared earlier in some potato factory. The same things applies to many fruits and vegetables too.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      Kit Kat’s were in foil with a paper wrapper.

      I bought some recently and was dismayed to see they were now in plastic as well.

      • Fox@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 months ago

        Thank you for the very informative link.

        Did not know that.

        I always try to avoid it but thanks to this list i at least know which company to trust about it a bit. Scorecard

        Still wont buy anything from danone, mars or nestle tho.

        • labsin@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          I think it’s fair to say those brands will source from the cheapest, scummiest places and it doesn’t matter what “certificate” sticker is on the box.

          But it is so hard to avoid them where I live :/ Even the fairtrade, vegan and responsible green washed products are from those 3…

      • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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        8 months ago

        It’s milk chocolate (coated at least)… I’ve tried alternatives and frankly white, dark and flavoured vegan chocolates are good enough but there’s nothing close to or as good as milk chocolate so at this point it’s like saying “boycott steak because it’s not vegan”… It’s a fact, sure, but not a reason against it for people who aren’t already vegan, and vegans are already boycotting it away, so it’s a reason for nobody?

        That said the fair cocoa point is very valid.

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    8 months ago

    Just eat it! What a waste! I mean, the stuff inside isn’t much better to be honest.

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    8 months ago

    Support your local baker and chocolate shop instead, big corporations aren’t your friend but your local small business owner could be

    • Luccajan@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Where I live normal bread like buns, sliced bread and baguette from my local baker are not more expensive than the grocery store, things like croissants and sausage/chocolate rolls are a bit more expensive but way better in quality however pastries and chocolate are disproportionately more expensive there so I still buy those at the store.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      Local business owners don’t stock their goods at the checkout counter at Walgreens. Also, even though I’m in a big city, no one makes something like the Kinder Bueno, it’s not a simple chocolate bar.

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      They’re my absolute weakness. I usually get two two packs and was like “oh they make a four pack now?” Thinking it would be less packaging… nope, it was more!

  • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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    8 months ago

    Man, you should see the Gansito packaging. Think about the Twinkie 2ct packaging where its wrapped in plastic with a cardboard tray to give it support. Thats fine. But Gansito goes an extra step. The whole package is wrapped in a foil bag. Inside it has a plastic tray, in which the individual cakes are wrapped in plastic. All this plastic for whats essentially 4 big bites of cake.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e2gKAfuswY

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    8 months ago

    Whenever I’m hating myself for my single use weaknesses, I picture a nurse doing one blood test or bandage… In every room… In every hospital… Everywhere… and that’s just healthcare which we give a pass for obvious reasons. If you want to project your self-hate onto others instead of using the exercise to chill out and be kind to yourself, you can even think of other industries like how much shit is coming out of some gun or Budweiser factory somewhere 🤷

  • ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    I’m curious how much plastic it actually is, if you say, melted it into a bead. It’s hard to tell just by looking at a bunch of torn-up wrappers.

    • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      According to this it takes about 50 tons of PE granules to make about 40 Kilometers of clingfilm.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVYpmXRHu00

      Moar plastic manufacturing. Thickness of 2/10,000 of an inch. Plastic is crazy cheap and efficient compared to other methods.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp2RDu9fw6o

      Plastic bags. Full roll is 348 lbs which makes 35,000 bags.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KznKNiXPFxM

      If you’re wondering about crude to plastic efficiency…

      It takes about 0.4 gallons of crude oil to make one pound of plastic, which means that 11 million metric tons of plastic equates to approximately 9.7 trillion gallons of oil.

      https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2021/09/24/plastic-pollution-oil-spill/

      A nice copout answer from the US Government lol.

      The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is unable to determine the specific amounts or origin of the feedstocks that are actually used to manufacture plastics in the United States.

      https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&amp;t=6

      This oil website even busts their chops on it lol.

      This fact itself raises questions such as, “How many barrels of oil go into plastic packaging?” A question that is quite difficult to answer. The Energy Information Administration absolutely refuses to answer it, saying that it collects no data in this segment. Yet data from a few years ago, when the EIA still collected information about this, shows that in 2010 some 191 million barrels of LPG and NGL were used for the production of plastics along with 412 billion cu ft of natural gas. The liquids amount constituted about 2.7 percent of the country’s total petroleum consumption. Most of the natural gas used in plastics production was used as a fuel rather than feedstock.

      Plastics production accounts for about 4 percent of global oil production. That’s according to figures for 2012, so now it may well be higher.

      https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/How-Much-Crude-Oil-Does-Plastic-Production-Really-Consume.html

      Some interesting glass to plastic energy efficiency info, not discounting their completely different use cases.

      The total energy required to produce, package, and transport a 16 oz. PET container is 32 MJ compared to 34 MJ for a 16 oz. glass container – virtually the same. Producing a pound of plastic resin, however, uses nearly nine times the energy of producing a pound of glass. These comparisons assume the use of virgin glass.

      https://ecologycenter.org/plastics/ptf/report1/

      • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldOP
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        8 months ago

        Only the individual bar wrappings were the standard clear plastic (stronger and more rigid than cling film), the two and four pack wrappers were the folk-like wrappers that you would see on Kit-Kats and the like.

  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    I ordered a lens filter for my camera, and couldn’t believe the amount of packaging and plastic wrapping it came with. It was absurd to the point of lunacy. We’re talking several boxes, something like four or five different plastic wrappers, etc. For a lens filter!

    It’s almost like manufacturers are aware that consumers aren’t “allowed” to use single-use plastic when getting groceries, so they double-down on their use for everything else!

    • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      Yeah, I ordered two end tables with shelves from Amazon a few weeks ago and they were like that. Each table had about 10-15 bags, and like 7 sheets of styrofoam.

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        and like 7 sheets of styrofoam.

        I really, really hate styrofoam. I recently had to put out an industrial-sized bag filled with the stuff, and I can’t honestly believe it’s still used for packing items. Strategically used cardboard, especially the formed stuff, is so much better to use and can be recycled easily.