I love going tubeless, hbu?
MAJOR news about aluminum foil
There’s some exciting innovation happening across the pond, and you know I’m gonna shout about it in written form.
At Tesco, a British grocer that happens to be the most popular supermarket in the UK, the aluminum foil rolls have officially gone tubeless.
Tubeless? you may ask.
Tubeless! I declare.
The grocer has done away with the cardboard tube that most aluminum foil comes wrapped around. According to Tesco, it’s the UK’s first ever tubeless kitchen foil (put that on my tombstone).
Maybe this doesn’t seem like the biggest deal on earth, but let me convince you that it is:
These tubeless beauties will stop the annual production of 12.5 million cardboard rolls.
The move is a subtle signifier and admission that hey, maybe dealing with waste and recycling shouldn’t all fall on the consumer. Tesco is able to make a much bigger impact by removing the tubes from the process altogether than, say, little old me vowing to repurpose every tube I buy into a dog chew toy until it becomes too wet from dog saliva and falls apart completely.
The whole process of switching to tubeless wasn’t as easy as simply removing the tube, so Tesco is deserving of a few clap clappies 👏 👏. Tesco employed a new “state-of-the-art rolling machine” that allows the aluminum foil to be “rolled tightly around a spindle that has air vents in it. By pumping air into these vents it allows the aluminum foil to be gently released.” Neat!
This design shift is especially topical in a moment where the “recycling is a scam” narrative is re-entering the chat. The article I linked out to is really about plastic recycling — cardboard is a much easier material to recycle — but the larger point sticks: Companies should prioritize waste reduction and stop relying on single-use materials that contribute to climate change. Tesco’s move shows that this is possible.
These kind of packaging revolutions are happening all the time. Tubeless toilet paper rolls already exist (the uncle of tubeless aluminum, IMHO), as do biodegradable packing peanuts. There is room to dream.
Of course, packaging innovations don’t solve for overconsumption or a burning earth — aluminum foil itself is (mostly) a single use product that rarely gets recycled — but these kinds of shifts meet people where they’re at, which is: perhaps unwilling to forgo aluminum foil, but excited by the opportunity to support a product that’s doing a little better for the planet.
To me, it’s bewildering why companies don’t do these things more often and more quickly (the answer is money, I’m not bewildered) and more, why our government doesn’t enforce stronger regulations to make it happen (America is a clown), but there are many problems to tackle, I suppose.
In any case, I’m happy to be on team tubeless. You?