Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by brndn 3233 days ago
More plastic than a super market does? And can you not just recycle the plastic containers?

If the world switched to services like Blue Apron/Hello Fresh/etc. rather than shopping in super markets, I wonder if we would overall produce more or less pollution? Super markets use a lot of energy and have a lot of waste.

2 comments

Super markets certainly have their problems, for reasons you've said. However, you can choose not to put your groceries in any plastic from the supermarket, if you wish. I have done exactly that for a while now and it's easily doable, you just have to be a little choosy about what you buy.

If people switched to shopping at local farmer's markets - so food wouldn't be shipped around at all - we would produce much less pollution and have much sustainable agriculture than either of those options.

Local agriculture usually costs a lot more energy and land than large scale agriculture or agriculture in a climate that is best suited for the plant. The transportation costs are a rounding error for many products. Organic products are particularly terrible in this respect.
It's the softer plastics that are sometimes harder to recycle. Hard containers are pretty easy, but some places can't accept their ubiquitous plastic bags with one green onion in them (not kidding on that point).