I decided to write to the company. Here is the email string in its entirety:
From The Reuser to American Licorice Company:
Hello! I wanted to write to tell you I love Red Vines! They're a "dangerous" food for me, because I can never stop eating them, if they're around. However, I was noticing today that the 4 lb. tubs of Red Vines are made out of vinyl plastic. I would like to ask you to reconsider using vinyl to package your product. Please see: http://www.watoxics.org/healthy-families/safe-start-for-kids-1/plastics-101 Have you had any other requests of this nature? I think I will probably not eat Red Vines again until they're packaged in something a bit safer. I've also brought this to the attention of my workmates, as we are all waste reduction educators and vinyl cannot easily be recycled. Thank you for your time and consideration.
From The American Licorice Company to The Reuser:
Thank you for taking the time today to contact the American Licorice Co. and for your concern with our products. For strength in shipping we use plastic vinyl containers. Our consumers find ways to re-use the containers for other purposes. Perhaps, you would feel more comfortable buying our 1 lb bag of Red Vines.
Red Vines 1 lb bags are carried at several national and regional chain stores. Please try Albertsons, Save Mart, Sack’ N Save, CVS, Flash Foods, Costco, Osco/Savon, Krogers, Food Lions, Rite Aid, Longs, Smart & Finals, Safeway, Sam’s Club, Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s. Please visit our website at www.redvines.com to find a store in your area that carries Red Vines brand candy.
If you have difficulty locating your favorite American Licorice products in retail, you can also visit our online candy store, Candy Cabinet (https://www.candycabinet.com) where American Licorice products are sold. You can also call Diversified Distributers at 1-877-453-1638 and tell them which of the American Licorice products you’re interested in. As a token of your love for our products, we will be sending Red Vines to enjoy. Please provide mailing address for delivery.
Cordially,
American Licorice Company
From The Reuser to The American Licorice Company:
Unfortunately, your answer is not very satisfactory. Have you tried other packaging types? If so, what have been the results? Is your company concerned at all with the potential negative effects of vinyl? Do you have a sustainability specialist? If so, can you please forward my email on to him or her? I understand that some of the tubs could be reused, but hopefully not for food items. This also dismisses the potential effects of your vinyl tubs being included in most recycling systems (such as ours) that can't handle them. I've been paying extra attention to the plastic packaging in the stores lately and it seems most of it is PETE. Is there some reason red vines couldn't be packaged in PETE or PP (polypropylene) plastic? I know you mentioned strength in shipping, but if every other plastic type I've seen is PETE, that becomes hard to believe.
From The American Licorice Company to The Reuser:
We do use polypropylene in our packaging. Our Original Red Vines 1lb bags and our 32oz Family Mix bags are packaged in PP. If you are interested, Red Vines 1lb Bags and Family Mix bags are carried at Albertsons, Save Mart, Sack’ N Save, CVS, Flash Foods, Costco, Osco/Savon, Krogers, Food Lions, Rite Aid, Longs, Smart & Finals, Safeway, Sam’s Club, Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreen’s. Please visit our website at www.redvines.com to find a store in your area that carries Red Vines brand candy.
If you have difficulty locating your favorite American Licorice products in retail, you can also visit our online candy store, Candy Cabinet (https://www.candycabinet.com) where American Licorice products are sold. You can also call Diversified Distributers at 1-877-453-1638 and tell them which of the American Licorice products you’re interested in. Once again for your concern
Cordially,
American Licorice Company
From The Reuser to The American Licorice Company:
You continue to ignore my essential question which is whether or not your company is concerned with potential negative effects by continuing to use vinyl in some of your packaging? Please address this essential question. I'm not asking where to find your products, I have no issues with that. I'm also not asking if I can buy your product in other types of plastic, I'm well aware I can. I'm asking about issues with using PVC and whether or not there has been any movement away from packaging in PVC tubs?
While I do appreciate your time taken to answer my questions, I feel you've been a bit willfully ignoring my question.
Sincerely,
The Reuser
That last email was sent on February 24th and I've had no response from them since. Nor have I purchased any products from them since that time.
The picture above was taken at the transfer station, proving that people do in fact believe the plastic is recyclable and mistakenly include it in their recycling carts.
This is a fairly common type of reply from any company that uses email for customer service. While I am SURE it is not deliberate, the people who respond to these emails look for certain key words, then use cut-and-paste to add boilerplate to a reply. Sometimes it is laziness, sometimes it is pressure to respond quickly, sometimes the CSR just doesn't have an answer, but can't says so without having to leave a complaint open. It's certainly not right, but you could go on forever with Customer Service. If you really want a reply, don't email. Send a regular letter addressed to the President of the company. That would probably be passed on to someone in the packaging department, rather than Customer Service.
ReplyDeleteInstead of complaining about the packaging used for a candy container, why not just stop eating garbage food? I'm fairly certain that 4 lb containers of candy are doing more harm to your health than a simple PVC tub. Do a little research on PVC rather than jumping on the bandwagon of scare tactics.
DeleteWow, Anon, Thanks for that incredibly helpful comment.
ReplyDeleteSo, just because I can choose to not eat the food anymore (which, by the way, I have done since this exchange...) I should "stop complaining" (Or, to put it another way: exercising my rights as a consumer.) You're right-I guess no one should ever voice their concerns, because clearly everyone is going to stop eating this "garbage" food.
As soon as pigs sprout wings, that is.
Do you have some research you'd care to share showing PVC is perfectly safe?
Even if you believe PVC to be perfectly safe, PVC in food packaging causes major problems for recycling, so that issue still stands.