WEBVTT - We Need More Sustainable Packaging, Like, Yesterday 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.400 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Jos 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:15.840 and there's Chock and we're just a couple of dudes 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.560 yacking it up about packaging waste because this is stuff 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:25.439 you should know. Let's go. Yeah. Uh, it's always fun, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:27.680 even after all these years, to just sort of not 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:29.160 know what's going to come out of your mouth at 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.680 the beginning of an episode. Same here, Um, oh like 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.440 as yourself. Yeah, I think this is a nice little 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.839 addendum or not addendum, but just in the same bucket 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:44.360 as our recent bottled water episode, and um, we did 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.760 when I'm Littering and the Ultra Processed Foods episode all 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.480 touched on this too. Yeah, and also of course recycling 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.519 in landfills. And I just I love at the end 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.080 of our whole career, we're gonna have these lovely buckets 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.640 of content, and this is one I'm most proud of, 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.560 our sort of environmental bucket. Yeah, it's good stuff. What 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.640 about our civics lessons bucket? Sure those are great, like 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.440 how to do a will and stuff like that. No, no, 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.120 like why jerrymandering is horrible? Oh sure, yeah those are 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.440 great too. Um, yeah, but these are recycling ones are 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.280 great and true crime forget about it, because you know 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:25.680 we're basically a true crime podcast. That So we're talking 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.880 today about packaging waste. And if you are alive today 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.840 in or the future, if you're listening to this in 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:37.920 the future, hello future, um, you are probably pretty well 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.760 aware that we have a lot of packaging. We use 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.560 a lot of packaging to put stuff in. Like I 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.880 remember buying a bottle of Crown Royal years and years 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.720 ago at the liquor store and they put it in 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.880 a paper bag when he thought it was the fanciest 0:01:55.880 --> 0:02:00.360 liquor totally and you and you would leave with paper 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:02.280 bag and take it home and you would pull the 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.920 box of Crown Royal out of the paper bag, you'd 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.560 pull the velvet bag that the Crown Royal was an 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.520 out of the box, and then you'd pull the bottle 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.680 out of the velvet bag. And then finally, after you 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:16.560 unscrewed the cap, you could get to what you were 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.919 after all along, which was the delicious Crown Royal. Right, 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:21.440 and you would put your bag of weed and the 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.239 velvet bag and you would go to the Motley Crew concert. 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:29.000 That's right with your little nineties bowl, the little brass bowl, 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.519 that's right. And hey, this is not to disparage Crown 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:35.200 Royal because they have been friendly enough to send us 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.680 their delicious ryeh over and over again. They really took 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.320 care of Remember they gave us those bags that were monogrammed. 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.760 So yeah, no, not not anything to disparage on Crown Royal. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.920 But it's it always struck me even back then, like 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.919 this is a lot of packaging, and how necessary is this? 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.080 And we finally reached the point where the rest of 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.160 society is caught up to me and are asking these 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.120 questions now. And the answer that we seem to be 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.400 coming up with is a lot of this stuff is 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.720 totally unnecessary, and the stuff that is necessary we have 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.040 to learn to make better and reuse better because we 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.919 are awash in garbage. And here in America it's kind 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.160 of tough to see unless you drive past the landfill 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.360 because we don't literally we used to. But what we 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.920 do is we dump our stuff either in landfills or 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.959 else we exported to other less developed countries to use 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.920 them as our landfills, which is really morally uncool, you know, oh, 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.480 absolutely uh, And it's funny I just noticed the other day. Uh, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:41.360 the very popular by knacks now COVID at home COVID tests. Uh, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:43.840 COVID came through our house again. We all got out everybody, 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.840 We're all great, We're all fine, but p s A 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.200 still out there. Be careful. But long and long and 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:51.600 short of it is, we're taking a lot of these 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.880 tests over the course of the two weeks, and they 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.720 are smaller now. I had to order some more, and 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.400 they are now. I don't know if you've used these. 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.560 They're not in the giant long box. And I thought, oh, 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.480 is there only one in there now? And no, they 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.080 just didn't need that big box. It's like the old 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.400 CED long box, the same. Yeah. And they came in 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:11.920 the mail. I was like, oh, well good, this thing 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:15.240 is probably not half the size, but probably close to it, 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.440 because there was no reason for those two COVID tests 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.440 just to be flopping around with all that real estate. Yeah, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.800 so good for them, Yeah, good for you. By an X. 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:25.880 Did you get him in the mail because Joe Biden 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:30.920 sent him to you? Joe Biden, I did, uh send 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.080 off for the free one from the government. But I 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:35.800 also had to you know, we we just keep a 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.360 stock in the house because we like to just make 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.760 sure we're keeping everyone safe. Definitely. And you have a 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:46.960 bowl full of condoms by your front door too, exactly 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.080 except ours is like, uh, give a penny, take a penny, 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.000 You take a condom, you gotta leave it, the condom 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.760 of equal or lesser size? What they? What am I 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.640 doing to call them? Like Coney Island whitefishes? That's right, 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:04.279 he's in New York. Oh God, and you need to 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.320 clean that bowl out, chuck. Oh. Can we talk about 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.760 packaging waste? Yes, let's talk about this because give this. 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:15.120 In the United States, of municipal solid waste, that's everything 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:19.680 that includes old washing machines for Pete's sake. Of municipal 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:24.240 solid waste is packaging containers, stuff that the stuff we're 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.400 actually buying comes in, or is shipped in, or is 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:32.200 transported to the story in right, So if we can 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:34.640 do something about that, if we can reduce the amount 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.680 of packaging or make the packaging we use more recyclable, 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.760 that would have an enormous impact on our landfill footprint 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.440 just out of the gate. Uh, and we do a 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.640 decent you know, I don't even know. Decent is such 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:52.520 a term that it's all over the place according to 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:54.000 who you are. So I don't even want to use it. 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.360 But we have put a dent in this packaging waste 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.560 with our recycling, at least compared to the past. Maybe 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:02.559 that's the safest way to say it. Yeah, we've definitely 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.320 gotten better because in nineteen sixty about a tenth of 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.280 packaging waste was recycled. Uhen was the most recent year 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:15.479 we have. We're up to packaging waste being recycled, but 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.640 that still means that they're uh, let me see here. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:25.360 Plastic ten million what is this tons? Yes, ten million 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.320 tons of plastic still end up in the landfills out 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.000 of million total. Yeah, seven million out of twelve million 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.200 of wood aluminium. You would think that's the easiest thing 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.680 to recycle. Everyone throws their aluminum cans recycling, right, Not true? 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.200 About half one million aluminum cans end up in landfills 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:51.560 with two million total. Yeah, that's unconscionable. Yeah, aluminum is 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.680 I've seen it described as infinitely recyclable. You can just 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.360 keep making the same aluminum can over and over again, 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.880 if you'll just recycle it rather than diverted to land 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:04.320 all that's pretty bad. Two million or one million landfilled 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.760 out of two million. On the other end, cardboard, we're 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.920 really really good that recycling cardboard. People recycle it. It's 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.120 also easy to recycle, so it gets recycled. Out of 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.560 forty two million tons of paper and cardboard that was 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.560 generated for packaging alone, just packaging everybody, I'm not including 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.440 like you know, um uh, construction paper from elementary schools, 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.640 none of that. This is all just packaging. In two 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.840 thousand and eighteen in the U S alone, out of 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.960 forty two million, only five million of that five million 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:37.040 tons ended up in the landfill. So that's really really good. 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.440 So cardboards not the problem as far as like packaging 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.800 and shipping and all of that stuff goes because a 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.559 lot of it, most of it gets recycled. The big 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:50.800 problem isn't even aluminum cans. The problem, chuck is polastic. Yeah, 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.120 plastics a big problem, and a lot of this again 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:58.720 overlaps with our bottled water up. But and we'll talk 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.600 about plastic all throughout this episode. Yeah, and when when 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.239 you think plastic, that's usually especially when you're talking about 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.200 plastic packaging waste, you think bottled waters or something like that, 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.240 or water bottles. Um but it can be any kind 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.200 of single use plastic where it can be like a 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.520 derrito wrapper that's made of plastic, styrofoam packing peanuts, that's 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:22.000 a kind of plastic too, it's a polystyrene um. Plastic 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.520 shows up in all sorts of other ways in other places, 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.040 especially with plaques or packaging. And the other thing that 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.520 you have to remember is this, think about how light 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:39.720 plastic is. Okay, ten ten million tons of plastic. That 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.120 is so much plastic in real terms, in real life 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.079 terms out there in landfills are in the environment even 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.960 worse that we're throwing away every year, every single year. Yeah, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.160 it's really unnerving when you get a product that is 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.920 shrink wrapped in plastic that doesn't need to be. It's 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:05.080 you know, yeah, I blame the Thailand All Poisoner for that. Yeah, 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.520 but really remember they were the ones who triggered tamper 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.319 proof packaging and like putting everything in like shrink wrap 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.960 and stuff. Yeah, but as a tape measure, it's going 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.719 to be tampered with. But I think that that's an 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:22.679 extension of that impulse that was originally created by the 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.720 Thailand All Poisoner that tamper proof packaging got extended to everything. Yeah, 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.320 I guess so, And I know some of it is 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.400 to protect the thing. But like, let's say you go 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.520 out and get like a screwdriver set. They're not gonna 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.080 sell you eight screwdrivers in a little like vinyl bag. 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.520 Like they sell you eight screwdrivers and one of those 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:47.320 huge square, you know, molded plastic things that are a 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.600 impossible to open. So they're annoying. But it's just it 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.960 just drives me crazy, drives me crazy. Have you tried 0:09:55.000 --> 0:10:00.960 practicing opening them screw driver? Sure, you gotta get a 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.719 like a carpet knife? What what brand do you use? 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.600 Carpet knife? No? But I mean you're you're screwdriver. When 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.880 you're buying that big box of screwdrivers? What brand are 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:13.760 you buying? I feel like in being set up for 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:15.599 something that I don't understand. So I'm just gonna go 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:20.560 and say Craftsman. Okay, that's why it was. It was 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.760 a rhetorical question. There's no wrong answer. But I I 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.640 don't have a problem opening and closing the plastic box 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.840 with de Walt brand tools. Well, I got a lot 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.360 of d Walt stuff. I love the Walt. In fact, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.520 most of my major power tools are de Walt. But 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.880 you know, I'm I'm just remembering. I shouldn't have said screwdrivers. 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.760 I should have said like wrenches, because the wrenches I 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.720 bought the wrench set came like that. I actually found 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:49.800 a screwdriver set where it had twelve screwdrivers in and 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.040 it was plastic, but it was in one little plastic 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.640 screw lid container, and it seemed a lot better than 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:02.080 the other alternative at least. Yeah. The next best step 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:04.760 after that is there's just some dude who hangs out 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.640 at the store that carries him home in his arms 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.320 and dumps him onto your floor and then leaves like 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.839 that kind of packaging. Yeah, he opens his overcoat and 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.400 they're all all the screw drives are hanging there. Right. 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.520 You just take your pick. Uh, let's talk a little 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.280 bit about the history before we break. I think because 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.600 I always think of Emily's grandparents, Charlie who has left us, 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.160 and then Mary, who was still chugging along at a 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.680 hundred and one years old. Believe it or not. Uh, 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.360 they didn't have garbage collection for almost their entire lives 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.920 in rural Ohio. Uh. They didn't want to pay for it, 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:42.760 and they didn't need it because they reused, recycled, and 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.240 when I say reused, they really reused. They composted. Um. 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:49.720 They did all the old things because they're that old 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.960 school Depression era generation to where you appreciate things like 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.520 that and you don't want to waste. And that's the 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.480 way that used to just be the norm. Pele would 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.320 buy and ship things and barrels and wooden boxes and 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.880 they would reuse those, and glass bottles that they would reuse. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.520 They would wrap up cheese and meats and things and 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.679 cloth forever that you would reuse and then eventually like 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.560 butcher paper. Uh. And that was just they didn't even 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:22.079 have regular garbage pickup until about the mid eighteen hundreds here, right, 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.400 because because again they didn't need it. I mean, yeah, 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.920 somebody sent you something and it wouldn't crate. You'd build 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.280 an addition on your house exactly. It was like that, 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:33.480 Like they would use glass bottles and then if the 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.520 glass bottle broke, they would fix it. And I was like, 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.120 how would they fix it? And apparently there's something called 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:44.360 um water water glass. It's sodium silicate and it's a 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.840 spread herble kind of glass where if you heat it up. 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.440 It basically fills in all the cracks and it's good 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.319 as new. I wonder if that's how they do. Should 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:55.640 ask Emily's dad the window chips, Oh, I wonder too. 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:57.679 Emily used to do that for a little while because 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.360 her dad has a Syneco glass. If you're in near Akron, Ohio, 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:05.199 that's the place to get your windows replaced. But Emily 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.920 did that for a summer, she fixed glass chips. Yeah, 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.640 you should definitely ask her that. So. Um, so, we 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:13.800 didn't have garbage pickup because we didn't need it because 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.360 everybody was reusing stuff food waste, like you said, they 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.280 were composting it, or they would just throw it out 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.960 to for the livestock, the hogs, the chickens, whatever they 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:26.599 would eat the whatever food wasting. I would guess that 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.280 they had much less food waste than we have today. 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.600 But again, there wasn't much need for garbage collection. That's 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:34.680 not to say there wasn't garbage. I saw in the 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:37.400 eighteenth century in New York they built appear in the 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.360 East River, purpose built to dump garbage into the East River. 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.520 The downside, not like they weren't doing it, but it 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.839 was just so minuscule compared to the amount of waste 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.439 that we generate today that it is essentially negligible. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:55.319 eighteen fifty six is kind of a fun little fact 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.760 to keep in your pocket. Uh. Corrugated paper, what would 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.680 become corrugated cardboard, was invented in eighteen fifty six in 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.760 England because of those big tall hats to keep those 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.679 things stiff. Pretty cool, I think so too. But then 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.640 it became a thing. Well, yeah, the slowly started replacing 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.480 the wooden crates right for shipping, so you couldn't build 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.640 an addition on your house anymore, that's right. But it 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:19.440 was a lot lighter, it was a lot easier, It 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.800 used up a lot less coal on the ship to 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.640 move across the sea. Um. It was kind of a 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.880 step up for sure. Um. And then Nabisco was the 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:32.480 first one to start selling single serve individual packaged foods 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:37.920 all the way back in uh. And it it makes sense, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.520 you know, in in in one way, but if you 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:42.520 you know, start caring about the environment, it makes like 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.800 zero sense whatsoever. Um. But they were the ones who 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.560 kicked all that off. Yeah. I found that kids, and 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.880 I remember this about myself, are very into those things. 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.800 I think just because they're small. Like I remember being 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:59.120 obsessed with the kids who could afford the little individual Pringles, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:01.760 not the ones they sell in the store now, but 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.800 they used to sell these little plastic peel away top 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:09.040 Pringles servings, and the kids in school that had those. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.680 I was so jealous of the they're rich kids. I 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:17.800 had my Charles Chips tin can basket out of your 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:22.520 shirt and carried around school till lunch. But Kellogg's you mentioned, 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.200 or maybe you didn't, but they were the first cereal box, 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.920 obviously in nineteen o six, and then beer cans. We're 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.520 steel originally they started in ninety six, Thank you Cores. 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.240 Then they switched to aluminum in fifty nine. But uh, 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.040 and this is very cool when you go look at 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.680 an old like I think smoking the Bandit even had 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.280 these where you had to use a can opener to 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.080 open a beer back in the day. Very cool. Yeah, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.600 they should bring that back. The poll tabs better because 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:53.240 you have to keep a can opener on you, you 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.520 know well. And the poll tabs, even though they were 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.440 bad for the environment. You could make an emergency phone 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.720 call at a telephone booth if you really you could 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.960 use that as a fake coin of slug now and 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.360 in war Games, Matthew Broderick can dow this trick where 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:12.040 he unscrewed the receiver where you're talking to it, and 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.720 then like, I don't think it's true at all. I 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:16.600 think they literally just made this up for the movie 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:18.720 and used a poll tab to make it like an 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.120 electric connection and like kind of hot wired the phone. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.880 Just give it a dial town. I'm sure it was 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.920 not true. I got you. But used to see those 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.080 all over the place, the poll tabs all over the 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:31.880 place on the ground. Yeah, I was up in my 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:34.920 attic the other day, um, and there was an old 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.960 poll tab old Milwaukee Can. It's funny, how old is Yeah, 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.080 it's funny when you find those these days. Now. I 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.560 know it doesn't go back any any earlier than nineteen 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.040 that's right. So, Um, like we said they were using 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.840 dumps and horrible places like the they would use wetlands 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.120 back in the day to dump trash, and apparently Boston's 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:58.000 Back Bay was a wetland that was originally a garbage dump. 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.400 And if you've ever been into back Bay, that's fairly 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.880 ironic because it's one of the more well healed parts 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:07.120 of Boston today, they built up real she she um 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.040 area that has like an anthropology and everything on it. Yeah, 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.879 and we should do an entire episode, I think on 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:18.359 Fresh Kills. That is basically what Staten Island used to be, 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.439 almost entirely. Well that's not true, but it was a 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:27.520 twenty two hundred acre landfill on Staten Island after I 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.800 believe after World War Two. Yeah, and I just it's 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.080 such a rabbit hole. I started looking into Fresh Kills 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:35.760 and I had to stop and I was like, we 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.320 just need to make this an episode because it was 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.399 a remarkably large It was the largest one in the world, 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.879 largest landfill, and they're reclaiming it and it's by thirty 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:51.239 I'm sorry, by uh, it's gonna be finished as as 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.160 a park, fresh Kill Park. I've seen some of the 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.560 artists rendering of it. It's gonna look really neat, very peaceful. Yeah, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.160 it would be a good episode, though. I think it's 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:04.240 interesting history. Okay, deal, So those those dumps that we 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.720 started to generate, like every city starting in the twentieth 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.600 century really started to need more and more dumps and 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.720 more and more space for landfills um and it grew 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.840 because our single use packaging grew, we just started throwing 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.280 stuff away, And in our Littering episode, I think we 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:28.800 specifically said that the plastic garbage bag people basically got 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.080 together and said, we need to teach everybody to start 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.440 throwing things away. They keep reusing this plastic stuff. So 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:39.000 they basically created a public information campaign to teach everybody 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.000 to throw stuff in the trash and to take their 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:42.680 trash out to the garbage can every night, and to 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.840 do this every single day. They taught America to throw 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:49.560 stuff away, which is just so villainous, But that really 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.440 kind of was the beginning around the middle of the 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:59.040 last century of our obsession with single use um packaging. Basically, yeah, 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:03.000 I think that glad bag first came around the late sixties, 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.000 and then in the mid just before that, in the 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:10.600 mid sixties, the grocery bag, the little light groceries bag 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.240 that has been such a problem in the world, that 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.119 came around in sixty five. But if you don't remember 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.280 those when you were like like our age and you 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.160 were a kid in the seventies and eighties, it's because 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:25.200 they people still generally used paper sacks. They were really 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.879 slow to catch on those plastic bags. But eventually, in 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.080 night five there was a conference of the Society of 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.199 Plastic Engineers, and then someone stood up on a stage 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.320 and said, hey, these things are twenty four dollars per thousand. 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.400 Paper bags are thirty dollars per thousand, And that changed everything. 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.440 Six or six dollars. Yeah, yeah, they were really working 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.159 at the Plastic Grocery sec Set Council. That was a 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.359 thing in nineteen eighty six. They got their hands on 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.240 the l A Times and said, hey, you make sure 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.320 you tell everybody that we've concluded plastic bags can be 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.119 reused in more than seventeen different ways. They said, it 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.679 can be used as a rap for frozen foods, a 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:10.240 jogger's windbreaker, or a beach bag. And then I'm gonna 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:13.440 go on, I'll bet the other what fourteen are like. 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.919 And a library bag and a school bag, and a 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.359 school lunch bag and a work lunch bag. Right, you 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.920 can then sacrifice a child with them, right. Well, actually, yeah, 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.240 that was a thing they had to teach Americans. These 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:30.240 things are really dangerous. Right. There's a famous photo of 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.840 plastics researcher with a i think a dry cleaning bag 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:35.520 over his head trying to take a breath, and they 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.720 really got the got the point across for sure also 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.119 though from the very not from the very beginning, but 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.639 once they caught on uh, in the mid eighties, people 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.320 did start kind of rallying against them. In a lot 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.800 of cases. Uh. There was a five hundred thousand member 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.800 group called the General Federation of Women's Clubs who in 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.720 eight six said, uh, no, these things are clearly not 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.359 going to be good for the environment, so let's let's 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.160 not use them. And that was six long time ago, 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:07.879 it was. And they got absolutely nowhere because I saw 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.600 UM about a decade ago they estimated that between five 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.280 hundred billion and one point five trillion plastic bags are 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.320 consumed globally each year, at a rate of more than 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:22.240 a million a minute. So they got nowhere. But there 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:26.000 have been some successes. UM McDonald's was the first actually 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:31.120 to pioneer single use packaging for food, and that meant 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.160 that they didn't have to have dishwashers at their restaurants, 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.159 they didn't have to have waiters to clear away plates, 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:40.000 and within I think forty years they finally were like, okay, 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.439 we'll give up our phone packaging, which I mean, there 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.680 are a few things more nostalgic for me. Then looking 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:50.040 at pictures of the old colored like phone packaging that mcdonald' 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:55.840 received that it's McDonald's phone packaging blue. There's no describe it, definitely, 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.480 but the mc d lt was the breaking point for everybody. 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:02.760 They're like, just too much got side hot, cool, side cool. 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.080 That's right. So that was the end of that, But 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.320 we still have a plastic problem, all right, So let's 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.080 take a break. Uh, we'll come back and we'll talk 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:41.080 about Amazon right after this this episode sponsored by Amazon. Well, uh, 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.400 we got to talk about it because especially, I mean 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:45.399 Amazon has been shipping things for a long time, but 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.880 especially I think when COVID took over, people really really 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:51.840 really started getting a lot of things delivered that they 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:57.240 used to routinely go to stores for. And um, they 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:01.919 have changed the way packaging works and the world and 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.280 especially the United States. Uh. There was a report by 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.800