Regarding McDonalds and styrofoam packaging: The timeline and how it played out reminds me of something we used to say to each other when I was in the Air Force and we had a project with an approaching deadline but had been putting it off. "How long will this take?" "If we wait until the last minute, it will only take a minute."
Curiously, the drama about McDonald's packaging seemed to miss the bigger point in my opinion. If the environmental benefit was even partially to protect human health, wouldn't we have gotten a bigger collective benefit by McDonalds dealing with the calorie count, high sodium, saturated fat and the highly processed ingredients in their food? Full disclosure -- I'm a sucker for a McDonald's steak, egg, and cheese biscuit...sorry, not sorry.
Guess that plan to go fight for mother russia didn’t work out too well for mr bentley. Oops. I wonder if The Guardian has done a follow up on other US residents who have moved to russia for various reasons only to find that things were not at all as expected.
The Australia experiment should be interesting to watch play out. There have been several articles out lately about the ill effects on developing brains. Speaking of brains, check out Heather Cox Richardson’s latest Substack.
As for styrofoam, it’s ubiquitous where I am now. There are so many little side hustle “fondas”(fast food)and food trucks around so people can grab a quick bite wherever they find themselves working, that foam take out boxes are everywhere. We don’t seem to have the problems with plastic grocery bags however. Reusable bags are cheap and readily available to always have. The trick is to remember to carry them into the store in the first place. There are always trade-offs it seems.
My industrial park neighbor had a contract to make a metal frame, powder coat it and provide polypropylene bags to recycle those styrofoam containers. They ran three shifts of 15 workers. In the space of one week three different companies laid off 62 employees, eventually all three companies went under and the buildings have now been vacant for over 20 years. That decision decimated a small town of around 2000 people.
I don’t know about anyone else but I consider this newsletter is more than just a creative information source but a test of your skills with the English language. Anachronism…never heard of it! Thanks for the lesson today, Bill!
Most of the take put containers here are plastic now, not styrofoam. Only place I see styrofoam is as hard packing material or the snow worm pellets.
The article on style was interesting. Most of the examples were women dressed up, men going hobo style. How much of that is societal expectations on “famous” women? I always thought that if the IT girls would stop wearing those murderous high heels and move to flats, we would all be better off and our feet would be overjoyed.
The screening of embryos is scary. We all want the “perfect” baby, but it’s the imperfections that give us character. Maybe if they could fix Downs Syndrome or cerebral palsy, it would be different. Still not good, though.
I remember a high school physics word problem question, involving the McD's package designed to keep hot and cold parts of a burger separate.
The whole premise that it didn't work, due to heat transference. (The clam shell parts were connected, allowing the heat/cold to cancel each other out. And the container was also in direct contact with the table).
Overall, great to keep any non disintegrating elements out of landfills. (containers, toys)
At same time... the "food" itself is harmful to the human body in many ways
It was what was in the styrofoam that was more toxic.
Regarding McDonalds and styrofoam packaging: The timeline and how it played out reminds me of something we used to say to each other when I was in the Air Force and we had a project with an approaching deadline but had been putting it off. "How long will this take?" "If we wait until the last minute, it will only take a minute."
Curiously, the drama about McDonald's packaging seemed to miss the bigger point in my opinion. If the environmental benefit was even partially to protect human health, wouldn't we have gotten a bigger collective benefit by McDonalds dealing with the calorie count, high sodium, saturated fat and the highly processed ingredients in their food? Full disclosure -- I'm a sucker for a McDonald's steak, egg, and cheese biscuit...sorry, not sorry.
Guess that plan to go fight for mother russia didn’t work out too well for mr bentley. Oops. I wonder if The Guardian has done a follow up on other US residents who have moved to russia for various reasons only to find that things were not at all as expected.
The Australia experiment should be interesting to watch play out. There have been several articles out lately about the ill effects on developing brains. Speaking of brains, check out Heather Cox Richardson’s latest Substack.
As for styrofoam, it’s ubiquitous where I am now. There are so many little side hustle “fondas”(fast food)and food trucks around so people can grab a quick bite wherever they find themselves working, that foam take out boxes are everywhere. We don’t seem to have the problems with plastic grocery bags however. Reusable bags are cheap and readily available to always have. The trick is to remember to carry them into the store in the first place. There are always trade-offs it seems.
It’s everywhere period. We travel all over and I can’t remember NOT getting leftovers from a restaurant in a styrofoam container.
Chinese restaurants are about the only ones I can think of that use folding boxes designed to be unfolded and used to eat from.
My industrial park neighbor had a contract to make a metal frame, powder coat it and provide polypropylene bags to recycle those styrofoam containers. They ran three shifts of 15 workers. In the space of one week three different companies laid off 62 employees, eventually all three companies went under and the buildings have now been vacant for over 20 years. That decision decimated a small town of around 2000 people.
I don’t know about anyone else but I consider this newsletter is more than just a creative information source but a test of your skills with the English language. Anachronism…never heard of it! Thanks for the lesson today, Bill!
Most of the take put containers here are plastic now, not styrofoam. Only place I see styrofoam is as hard packing material or the snow worm pellets.
The article on style was interesting. Most of the examples were women dressed up, men going hobo style. How much of that is societal expectations on “famous” women? I always thought that if the IT girls would stop wearing those murderous high heels and move to flats, we would all be better off and our feet would be overjoyed.
The screening of embryos is scary. We all want the “perfect” baby, but it’s the imperfections that give us character. Maybe if they could fix Downs Syndrome or cerebral palsy, it would be different. Still not good, though.
I remember a high school physics word problem question, involving the McD's package designed to keep hot and cold parts of a burger separate.
The whole premise that it didn't work, due to heat transference. (The clam shell parts were connected, allowing the heat/cold to cancel each other out. And the container was also in direct contact with the table).
Overall, great to keep any non disintegrating elements out of landfills. (containers, toys)
At same time... the "food" itself is harmful to the human body in many ways