Late night daft idea #276: avoid H&S pasta-to-sauce inconsistencies by providing the pasta and powder separately

then don’t use single use plastic.

(Sorry) Meaning the plastic pot that a Pot Noodle comes in… Could maybe be a paper sachet you pour into your Hot and Savoury pot?

Pot Noodle pots (and lids) are not single use plastics and can be recycled. The vast majority of non-flexible food and drink packaging are not made from single use plastics.

if the concept of recycling your waste plastics troubles you - you could just use a paper pot instead

Indeed using plastic does trouble me :confused: and I need to be using less

Nonsense :slight_smile: @gordon.harris

I just picked this up from a supermarket. Not as healthy as H&S but 49p a serving. 68g product to 200ml water - same ratio as H&S Mac n Cheeze.

If they can make this profitable, I have no doubt a “premium” and healthy single serving pasta and sauce from Huel is doable :slight_smile:


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WELL…. That’s really a different market to the ‘Pot Noodle’ type product line. That’s exactly how it could be bulk packed individually for people buying H&S already but the grab and go supermarket product would sell much more in packaging that you can pour hot water directly in to.

I don’t think ‘single use’ and non-recyclable’ are synonymous.

As I understand it the term ‘single use’ refers to the item, not to the material it’s made from.
So a Pot Noodle pot is a single-use item regardless of whether it goes into refuse or recycling. It’s been used just once, and was designed for that purpose. If they were designed to be reused or repurposed (pot plants? lampshades?), then fair enough, but they’re not. So ‘single use’ by design and in normal practice.

Like Huel bags: they may be fully recyclable, but they’re absolutely ‘single-use’ by design, until the day that we can send them back to Huel for refilling. :bulb:

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Yes and no. Single use plastics can be because they either can’t be reused/recycled or the consumer just throws them instead of reusing them or recycling. So no a Pot Noodle pot isn’t a single use plastic – unless the consumer chooses to treat it so. It could easily be re-used for other purposes.

Interesting concept, that it’s solely the consumer who dictates whether an item is a single-use or not, and nothing to do with the design or manufacture.

Kind of lets the manufacturers off the hook a bit I’d say.

Anyway here’s what Greenpeace reckons:

Q: It’s not “single use” if the plastics are recycled, right?

A: Recycled or recyclable throwaway plastics are still single-use. Single-use plastics are always going to be throwaway plastics, regardless of whether a company is able to recycle a percentage of them. We know that over 90 percent of the plastic waste produced has not been recycled and eventually a proportion of that packaging will end up polluting our environment. Companies can try to spin their recycling efforts as making the difference for our oceans and waterways, but they’re actually just dodging true accountability for the crisis they helped to create. Real leadership means reducing the throwaway plastics they produce and sell.

Plastic Pollution FAQs - Greenpeace USA

The grab and go supermarket HUEL meal could make use of a paper pot much like Starbucks use for porridge perhaps?
I believe these have a plastic film inside but must be a 98% reduction in plastic use?

it also feeds an already unhealthy consumer sense of entitlement that they have zero responsibility for dealing with their waste - so theres two sides to that debate. If you say something is defined as single use because of design - then that really applies to virtually everything we buy - regardless of the material - so why only use the term when referring to plastics?

you could also use PLA plastic as a liner to make it even better.

The term ‘single-use’ is used in reference to plastics because plastics are a problem. Single-use wood in matches isn’t so much of an issue, I think, but single-use wooden chopsticks are reportedly a concern. So it’s a useful term, whenever something is designed to be used once only and that creates a problem.

When governments talk about the need to reduce the production of single-use plastics they’re talking about design and manufacture, not individuals’ behaviour regarding recycling and repurposing.

Sure we should recycle, but a Pot Noodle pot is designed to be discarded and not re-used and for me that makes it a single-use item according to any practical definition.

Really, all waste is a problem and there are literally very few practical or sustainable alternatives. Pulp and paper packaging is a problem for different reasons – primarily its sustainability long term if its use grows exponentially. There are literally consequences for every option you take – so it’s best not to get bogged down in terminology semantics.

There are a lot of brands who are currently piloting BYOB and BYOC vending machines in stores (Coke trialling bring your own bottle and Nestlé offering bring your container options for coffee and cereals for example) and personally, I think these are great but again there are consequences for this solution.

In these kind of situations then the consumer becomes very responsible for the suitability of the bottle or container for example - and would not be able to hold the brand accountable for the quality of the product they bought.

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