Component packaging

[mrjemm]

Do individual inner tubes ned to be sold in boxes?

Probably they do, I have had to throw away more than one inner tube that I have left unpackaged and it is quite clear that it was the bits that could see the light of day which were perished.

Maybe worth keeping them in a drawer next time... Or in a pannier ready for action.

[beardy]

A drawer uses up a lot more resources than a cardboard box. I am against useless packaging but this is one item that actually gets a reasonable benefit from its packaging as do things like biscuits.
Biscuits need just enough to keep the air off and innertubes just enough to keep the light off. The problem is that they get additional gratuitous packaging.

[mrjemm]

Only packaging biscuits need is built into me...

Unless they contain palm oil.

[beardy]

My biscuits say "Our products contain sustainable palm oil".

I would not fall off my chair in shock if I later found this to be disingenuous.
Until I cease being too lazy to till the earth myself for my food, I will be having to make some compromises to the ideal.

I am already in the position where, I now have whole blocks of a supermarket where I do not even enter, some years ago it was just rows of the supermarket.

[MikeF]

Using cardboard and other organic matter is all very well for it's immediate impact if recycling etc., but really it's just more forests gone and more landfill eventually and more pollution when burnt and more fuel to produce, transport, recycle, process, destroy, etc.

By forests I presume you mean trees. Not the same thing, but I think that those that know the difference are a diminishing "breed". Trees grow so it does not necessarily mean a loss. Cardboard will biodegrade, or, if you wish, can be burnt without much pollution and can create useful heat if done properly ie produce energy . Everything we buy in shops has to be disposed at sometime. Perhaps we should stop buying?

Indeed forests and trees are not the same thing. I mean forests. Tree farms are not forests, and when forest products are produced, forests are gone. Tree farms do not make up for this, they are not anywhere near the same thing as old growth. ENvironmental 'mitigation' is such a poor relative of what is destroyed in the name of 'development'.

And yes, we should stop buying, that is pretty much exactly what I am getting at; we buy too much, produce too much, consume too much. Is that piece of cardboard tubing that your new Ergon grip was attached to preferable to shelter for a bird? Is that cake you had on your tea stop more important than the home of an Orang Utan (palm oil)? Is your cycle track being smooth more important than the tree next to it, and it's inhabitants, the root of which pushed up a slight ridge?

Do individual inner tubes ned to be sold in boxes? Do we need blister packs for the handful of cable ends?

The simplest definition of "forest" is land that has remained uncultivated. Whether there are trees on that forest is purely coincidental. A forest could be treeless. In this country we have a dozen or more words describing groups of trees, such used to be their importance, and strictly "forest" isn't one of them. I live very close to Ashdown Forest, which is a nearby example with some trees, but also vast open areas. The Victorians started the corruption of the word and then of course this corruption was endorsed by the creation of the " Forestry Commission".

All green plants, not just trees, absorb CO2 in the presence of light. However when a tree/plant dies it will release that CO2 if it rots, is eaten or burnt, unless the carbon is trapped (sequestered) eg in a peat bog.

Compared with goods sold say 50 years ago packaging has increased enormously, and disposal has increased by about the same amount. It is a major problem, and one way to reduce the problem is to reduced packaging, but the selling of products is now geared around packaging.

[mrjemm]

I am very familiar with 'The Forest of Bowland', which is primarily moorland, and has very few trees, and sadly of those, I suspect many are farmed. And the rest of the land I suspect is not natural moor, but maintained for the 'sport' of the gentry.

But though primarily I refer to the typical interpretation of the term in this case, all variations on it are relevant when destroyed.

[reohn2]

Indeed forests and trees are not the same thing. I mean forests. Tree farms are not forests, and when forest products are produced, forests are gone. Tree farms do not make up for this, they are not anywhere near the same thing as old growth. ENvironmental 'mitigation' is such a poor relative of what is destroyed in the name of 'development'.

Not they're not,but most likely deciduous forest will have been felled to be replaced by those horrible spruce stands for paper/cardboard.It's just another step back along the line,we started out with real trees paper and cardboard consumption reduced nature to a 'farm'.

[reohn2]

To be fair burning trees merely releases short term Carbon - it's all short term carbon cycle....

See other post regarding tree 'farms',whether short term or not it's a terrible and unnecessary waste for a bit of pretty paper.
Christmas is coming BTW

[reohn2]

But though primarily I refer to the typical interpretation of the term in this case, all variations on it are relevant when destroyed.

I agree,and it's only splitting hairs in this context refer to moorland as forest IMHO,however corrupt the Victorians were

[Edwards]

Unfortunately the majority of consumers want the item to be in a clean undamaged state when the collect or receive it. The tend to blame the retailer not the shipper if it is not.
So manufacturers when supplying to companies such as Shimano and Campag started to package stuff to avoid this.

We have now got to the stage that a vast number of people expect flashy packaging and now think that the product is inferior if it is in a brown paper bag.

Consumers are such fools.

[Penfolds11]

I have a drawer set aside for bike bits and into that drawer went the inner tubes that arrived shrink-wrapped in polythene within a jiffy bag. No cardboard in sight and no sunshine in my drawer. I would rather have had cardboard (see below) as the shrink-wrap will probably still be around in 100 years time, unless it gets burned!

We do get a lot of cardboard packaging on the products we buy and it all goes onto the compost heap at the bottom of the garden, eventually recycled by a tenuous route into vegetables!

None of my biscuits contain palm oil: I don't know where to buy the stuff so I have to bake mine without adding any palm oil. Yes, I know that sounds smugly self-righteous but I seem to have a knack for making ginger biscuits that Mrs P loves.

A few years ago I read that the CO2 caused by engines, specifically airplanes but also cars, isn't the same CO2 that trees absorb. There is also a maximum amount of CO2 that trees can absorb before they leech any excess back into the ground, rather like a sponge saturated with water. The upshot was that planting trees as a carbon offset for plane travel doesn't work, and even if it did it wouldn't solve the pollution problem. I presume that is still the case but My Friend Google isn't offering me any recent articles confirming that.

[foxyrider]

Surely if its not the same it can't be CO2 as that set of letters/numbers represents the chemical makeup of the material?

So its either CO2 or its not, it can't be a 'different type', any chemists out there?

[RickH]

Surely if its not the same it can't be CO2 as that set of letters/numbers represents the chemical makeup of the material?

So its either CO2 or its not, it can't be a 'different type', any chemists out there?

As far as I can recall (rusty biochemistry degree knowledge lurking in seldom used brain cells - if they were books in a library you would probably have to blow the dust off ) CO2 is pretty much CO2 - there will be slight variations due to the presence of minute quantities of different isotopes (Wikipedia explanation for those who want to know) but, as far as I know, they won't have any different chemical properties.

There is also a maximum amount of CO2 that trees can absorb before they leech any excess back into the ground, rather like a sponge saturated with water.

There is a maximum amount of CO2 any given tree can use out of the air - any it can't use in photosynthesis is just left there. Just like when we breathe we don't suck all the oxygen out of the air, we only remove a few percent and breathe the rest back out. Plants don't suck CO2 into the ground, the CO2 effectively gets captured as dead plant material gets buried and into a (relatively) static state, such as peat near the surface, or coal, gas, etc. Decaying plants release methane, another "greenhouse gas" which is arguably worse than CO2. CO2 can also be dissolved in water so the oceans can hold vast quantities how much is affected by current patterns & ocean temperatures and is notoriously difficult to model. Etc., etc.

On the packaging subject it did occur to me that there is a potentially crucial difference between retail packing & OEM stuff intended for bike manufacturers to use.

• Manufacturers can reasonably be expected to know what to do with the stuff and where necessary should have been provided with crucial information, such as minimum or maximum safe torques for fastenings.
• Retail items intended to sold singly or in small quantities to end users (who may or not have any prior knowledge of the product) should have such important information provided (it is then up to the purchaser whether they pay any attention to it!) as they should not be expected to go hunting for it themselves.

I wondered where the liability would rest with a supplier who sells OEM stuff without instructions and a purchaser doesn't do up a fixing correctly, say bolts on a stem, and suffers injury as a result.

Just my thoughts.

Rick.

[Penfolds11]

Surely if its not the same it can't be CO2 as that set of letters/numbers represents the chemical makeup of the material?

So its either CO2 or its not, it can't be a 'different type', any chemists out there?

Good point, maybe it was carbon as there was a clear difference between the waste of coal and that of processed oil-based fuel. As I'm certainly no chemist that's about as complex as I can get. I remember that it was an article on the practice of tourists paying for carbon miles by planting trees and the crux of the article was that the carbon footprint of air-travel can't be offset by trees as they don't absorb airplane emittence, trees absorb carbon produced by burning coal and other fossil-fuels.

I can already feel myself drowning in facts as I thought oil was a fossil fuel as well!