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from the well,-that's-certainly-different dept.
AlterNet reports
Forget plastic bag bans. Berlin is now home to a supermarket that's gotten rid [of all] disposable packaging. Original Unverpackt ("Original Unpackaged") [Google translation], which opened Saturday, is more of a shop, to be exact, but its 350-some products -- including from fruits, vegetables, dry grains and pourable liquids like yogurt, lotion and shampoo -- are dispensed into refillable containers. (Some liquids come in bottles with deposits on them, which is already standard in Germany).
The shop, backed by crowdfunding, is a creative experiment in a new kind of shopping, one that takes the ethics of stores like Whole Foods to a new level. It sells mostly organic products, each of which is labeled with its country of origin, and eschews brand names. Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovski, the duo behind the project, were driven by the slogan[1] "Let's be real, try something impossible."
It remains to be seen if the store's scalable -- and whether it will catch on with the public. One "group of Germans" interviewed by NPR Berlin[2] complained that the store "looks too pretty and nice, and too bourgeois"; CityLab characterized such sentiments as reflecting a sense that "living a supposedly pared-down, less wasteful life is essentially a lifestyle hobby for people with enough spare cash to play at green dress-up." But while many of the products offered, perhaps because they're organic, tend to skew toward the pricier end of things, others are equivalent or cheaper than standard supermarket fare, one German newspaper reports [Google translation]. And a virtue of the fill-your-own-container model is that customers can purchase ingredients in exact amounts, meaning they don't have to overspend for food they don't need.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday September 22 2014, @01:22AM
All these containers need thorough washing before they can be refilled. How many milk bottles do you know that support such washing without using abrasives, special brushes, and dangerous liquids? How would one wash a container at home? How would one be sure that the container is clean? Those people were born after the industrial revolution in food processing, and they simply don't know what happens after eating contaminated food.
This will lead to increase in food poisoning, but will save 0.5g of biodegradeable plastic that otherwise could be used to make a bag. But if someone is willing to risk his own health, and health of their family, in order to save a bit of energy, they ought to be free to do so.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @01:39AM
Some years back, we bought raw milk from an organic farm (before it was available packaged) in USA. We washed our own half gallon glass bottles, bought two or three gallons/week which were filled directly by the farmer from his metal container (he sterilized with steam). Must have done this for 10-15 years for a family of five and had zero problems. The milk tasted great, perhaps because it was several days fresher than anything in a supermarket?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday September 22 2014, @01:49AM
You seem to have some horribly twisted conceptions of food poisoning and contamination. You do not need "abrasives, special brushes, and dangerous liquids". As long as you aren't shitting in your drinking water and deliberately letting things get dirty, there is absolutely no need for industrial grade disinfection. In fact, that's a really good way to breed a population that's allergic to damn well everything.
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(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday September 22 2014, @02:04AM
Save 1 US$ on packaging. Pay up 1000 US$ for a visit to the emergency room at the hospital. Environmental savings, negative.
I wouldn't worry about the cleanliness of my own stuff. The big problem is that not all people have a sense of hygiene!
"Clean" your fingers with your mouth and then "clean" the tap of whatever fluid that you handle? or drinking by putting the tap end into the mouth. Or the simple scenarios of using fingers that has touched public environment with coliform bacteria (ass) and flue viruses that then ends up on your vegetables etc. Or just sneezing in the shop, you think they will discard their products? nope, they continue to sell it.
So packaging is bad. But there's a reason why it's used..
Can someone explain this "Some liquids come in bottles with deposits on them, which is already standard in German". Is there some kind of standard bottle system in Germany? Anyone that uses fluid containers of metal should be aware of the use of Bis phenol A in those.
Some people has taken the raw food concept to the extreme by making burgers with raw meat. It works with farms that pay good attention to hygiene and have good luck. But the risk for serious infections that can screw you up is then present.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @03:21AM
If it's anything like here in the Netherlands, it just means that any plastic bottle >1 liter has an extra charge (say 25 cents), which you get back by returning the bottle, which will then be recycled.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday September 22 2014, @08:21AM
Can someone explain this "Some liquids come in bottles with deposits on them, which is already standard in German".
That's probably one of the recycling setups where the customer pays a little extra per recyclable container, then can get the money back if they turn in the clean, empty container to a recycling center later on. I don't know how many other nations have it set up that way, but Wikipedia says there's eleven American states that have similar schemes [wikipedia.org]; in California where I live, for example, it's 5¢ for eligible containers under 24 ounces and 10¢ for anything larger.
(Score: 1) by jcm on Monday September 22 2014, @10:22AM
I don't know how many other nations have it set up that way
In France, there was a similar system a lot of years ago. It was called "consigne".
We bought glass bottles filled with liquids.
When we returned the glass bottles, we got some money back.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 22 2014, @06:41PM
Many drink containers have the list of states printed in tiny characters on a side, and sometimes the amount.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @02:40AM
We wash the dishes and use the same serial bowls over and over. We wash our cups and plates and pots and pans and reuse them. We use relatively harmless dish soap. It seems to work quite well. So now this is just one (or a few) more item(s) to wash.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday September 22 2014, @02:54AM
How do you know it works?
(Score: 2, Funny) by RedGreen on Monday September 22 2014, @03:47AM
Not getting sick and dying probably clued him in firstly, then the next 1000s of plus times nothing happened either so you get to trust you will get the same result every time you do it.
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(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 23 2014, @01:45AM
They're serial bowls! They have been used serially, one after another, for a long time! So of course they work! Some even work with cereal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 22 2014, @07:54AM
How many milk bottles? My son used to use four simple plastic bottles since when he was an infant and occasionally until today (he's now six). We never used any serious abrasives to clean them other than those that come with a household sponge, I doubt you'd consider the little bottle brushes I used as anything special since you can buy a similar one at any supermarket for less than a dollar, and I don't think ordinary dishwashing soap qualifies as a dangerous liquid. My son's still very much alive and healthy. The same is true of all the plates and pans in my household. I don't think I've ever gotten food poisoning in my life, much less from eating food prepared in my own kitchen by my own hands. You overstate the need for industrial-strength disinfection you allude to. Just wash the same containers you bring to the supermarket just like everything else you use in your household.
Frankly, I think it would be great if more supermarkets did the same. I see discarded packaging make up an appallingly large fraction of my household's waste.