Pepsi shortage?

[William Uhlhorn]

Anybody remember when Jack In the Box first opened? Remember Jack Cola? How long did that last. You are not selling flavor you are selling "marketing". I took over a theater that sold Pepsi. We changed over to Coke. Customers would actually thank us for changing brands. You don't sell stuff you like, you sell what the customers want.

[Randy Stankey]

...Unless there is a regional culture that favors a local product.

When I was a kid, there was a brand of potato chips called "Troyer's" that was made in the area and everybody who was anybody sold Troyer's.

But, then, Troyer's was bought out by a company called "Bickel's." The quality went down. Business dropped off and, despite Bickel's assurances that they would keep the plant open, they shut it down, laid off all the workers and sold the brand to another company.

Today, the Troyer brand is considered a pariah in this area. Now, nobody would buy Troyer's if they were paid.

Bottom line: Know the local favorites.

If that's what Mark is doing, more power to him!

[Leo Enticknap]

You’d think that, in times like this, companies would be more interested in recycling plastic.

The issue, as I understand it, is that until around two years ago, most recycling was done by shipping the waste materials in question to China. Then the Chinese government abruptly banned all imports of waste material for recycling, leaving much of the rest of the world, but especially us, with a big problem. The USA has never had domestic recycling capacity for anything on a significant scale, except paper.

One indication of this was that my local Home Depot had a battery recycling bin until about this time last year. We mainly use rechargeables, but our Simplisafe burglar alarm system requires lithium one-time AAs (presumably because anything cheaper can't maintain the full 1.5v for long enough) and CR123s. We usually generate 10-20 a year of them for recycling, and I used to take them to this recycling bin. The last time I tried, the bin had gone. The guy there told me that for many years, a company paid them for the used batteries. Then they started to demand payment to take them away. So that was the end of the bin.

So I suspect that the lack of domestic recycling capacity here in the USA is resulting in a lot of these plastic bottles going to landfill - even the ones we toss into trash cans labeled as for recycling.

In our business, the semiconductor shortage has definitely had an effect. I have one customer who has been waiting for an IMS3000 for 3-4 months. Every week, we are told that it'll likely ship next week. 3-4 months is now the typical lead time for most QSC new equipment orders, and 1-3 months for repairs that require new parts, too. I installed an amplifier on Thursday that had been ordered in early April.

[Steve Guttag]

The server thing is starting to get scary. We're starting to see some original servers, now over 10-years old, are starting to drop with mediablock failures. As Leo noted. Dolby has long lead times now (last year, they had an abundance of stock and shipped pretty quick). GDC has posted that they have long lead times but not as long as Dolby. If a mediablock goes, there isn't much one can do and these older servers are not unrepairable (for the mediablock...most other things in a "box" server can be source through other sources though those are starting to dry up too.

[Randy Stankey]

At work, I make Micro-D subminiature connectors that go into a lot of electronic assemblies like DCP projectors.

My company has a pretty bad backlog of orders, mainly because of supplier delays. We'll get orders where half the components are missing and they end up sitting on shelves, waiting for delivery of those missing components. There are some orders that are more than a month late because of this.

So, yes, I can understand why companies like Dolby are having trouble supplying replacement parts.

Leo: Yes, I understand that the US and other countries have trouble finding places to send their recyclable waste because of issues with China.
I was referring to just that. I was saying that I don't understand why companies in the US aren't working on better ways to handle plastic waste, owing to the fact that there is a shortage of raw materials to make new plastic. You'd think that, when there is demand for something, people would work out ways to fulfill it.

It's probably because there aren't enough companies that think the problem is "bad enough" to worry about spending the research dollars to solve it.

[Frank Cox]

I suspect it's one of those short-term problem, long-term solution issues. If the supply will be back to normal within time period X but it will take a multiple of X to get a new factory off the ground then why bother.

[Leo Enticknap]

The last I heard about this (a feature on a local radio news show about a year ago), we are starting to build plastic recycling capacity, but this can't be done overnight, and it'll take a couple more years yet before significant capacity is online. Amazon is developing a recycling process to extract the rare earth metal magnets out of worn out hard drives, too. Apparently if we can salvage most of them, that would reduce the imports of some metals needed for electric car batteries by a third.

f a mediablock goes, there isn't much one can do and these older servers are not unrepairable (for the mediablock...most other things in a "box" server can be source through other sources though those are starting to dry up too.

Agreed completely. I service one 11-plex that has 10 x DSS220/cat745 combos. The other screen has an IMS2000, installed after their last remaining Series 1 projector was upgraded 2-3 years ago. I have advised the manager that if one of those cat745s dies, he's looking at months of lead time for a new IMS. The screen likely wouldn't be down, because we have some old servers and Enigma cards at the shop that we keep charged up and regularly tested for such contingencies ... but a finite number.

About three of those cat745s have the replacement, soldered on batteries on them, after they were sent back to Dolby for recertificating. The others still have the original CR2477Ns, and they were last all replaced in January 2019. I lost three out of the eleven then, and those were the ones that went back to Dolby and now have the new batteries. Per Dolby's recommendation, they should be replaced this coming January. I'm not sure what to do. We know that replacing those batteries has a relatively high failure rate, but we also know that if we do nothing, they'll eventually discharge. My instinct is to advise him to leave the card cages in those projectors powered up 24/7, until he is able to upgrade those screens to IMSes. But even that will only help if the certificate memory is maintained by power from the backplane while the projector is on. I know it isn't with the Alchemy - not sure if it is or not with the cat745.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I suspect it's one of those short-term problem, long-term solution issues. If the supply will be back to normal within time period X but it will take a multiple of X to get a new factory off the ground then why bother.

Another shortage right now are central air conditioning compressor units... Mine went out in my apartment and the landlord brought in a portable unit that I had my doubts about for a place this large. But it's actually cooling the entire three bedroom place pretty well, and the replacement compressor unit that goes outside is about month off...

Leo, I do not think GDC has any shortage right now of IMB servers... They must be using different semiconductors than what Dolby is using, or they were smart enough to stockpile. I know from my home audio hobbies that there is a huge shortage of semiconductors of many many types, from bi-polar transistors to CPU's and everything in between.

[Leo Enticknap]

Or GDC does final assembly in Hong Kong, whereas Dolby does in San Francisco and/or Wootton Bassett, so the supply chain logistics are different?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Not sure about those,details, but the semi's pretty much come from the same factories.

[Randy Stankey]

The last I heard about this (a feature on a local radio news show about a year ago), we are starting to build plastic recycling capacity, but this can't be done overnight, and it'll take a couple more years yet before significant capacity is online. Amazon is developing a recycling process to extract the rare earth metal magnets out of worn out hard drives, too. Apparently if we can salvage most of them, that would reduce the imports of some metals needed for electric car batteries by a third.

The thing about recycling, as I see it, is that we don't necessarily need to recycle plastic back into the same thing as before. The same thing goes for other things like paper.

Yes, some plastics can be made back into the same material and reused for the same purpose but, when it comes to plastic, we can't use 100% recycled material to make the original material. Plastic does degrade and needs to be supplemented with new before it can be reused.

For electronics, I think it is smart to extract the rare earths and exotic materials for reuse but, for other things, it might not make sense.

Whether or not we recycle in the classic sense or we "cross-cycle" into different things, It seems to me that we have huge amounts of waste material that could be used as feedstock for other industrial products or raw materials to make other things.

Why do people in industry seem to be stuck on the idea that "recycling" means making waste back into the same thing as before?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The thing about recycling, as I see it, is that we don't necessarily need to recycle plastic back into the same thing as before. The same thing goes for other things like paper.

Yes, some plastics can be made back into the same material and reused for the same purpose but, when it comes to plastic, we can't use 100% recycled material to make the original material. Plastic does degrade and needs to be supplemented with new before it can be reused.

For electronics, I think it is smart to extract the rare earths and exotic materials for reuse but, for other things, it might not make sense.

Whether or not we recycle in the classic sense or we "cross-cycle" into different things, It seems to me that we have huge amounts of waste material that could be used as feedstock for other industrial products or raw materials to make other things.

Why do people in industry seem to be stuck on the idea that "recycling" means making waste back into the same thing as before?

What needs to happen and happen soon is to find a biodegradable substitute for plastic. I am no tree hugger by any means, but the amount of plastic that is just discarded into rivers and oceans is way out of hand.

[Steve Guttag]

I thought the beverage itself was biodegradable plastic. Single-use plastic is way out of hand. Glass and Aluminum are better vessels. Glass is inherently recyclable not to mention reusable. Aluminum is one of the best recycle items and doesn't have the breakage issue that glass has. If one wants to use plastic, they should also have a means to collect it and reuse it.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Recyclable vessels for drinks are pretty straight forward: Just force the manufacturers to recycle their packaging. Quite a few countries have been effectively recycling those bottles for years by charging a small deposit on every bottle that you can get back if you return your empty bottles. What remains is all the other single-serve plastics we still use in packaging. Go to any odd supermarket and just look at the sheer amount of plastic that's used to wrap individual food items for example...

[Randy Stankey]

What needs to happen and happen soon is to find a biodegradable substitute for plastic.

When I go to the grocery store, the clerk always asks whether it's okay to put my things in a plastic bag and I always say, "I just bought a dozen items, all wrapped in plastic, and people ask me whether it's okay to use a plastic bag."

Most of them will just come back with a blank stare.
Yes, I understand that their bosses are telling them to ask but, if people don't bring things like this to attention, nobody will act to solve the problem.

I don't see plastic, by itself, as the problem. It's the fact that EVERYTHING in the grocery stores are covered in it and there is no way to recycle, "cross-cycle" or reuse plastic for other purposes. That necessitates MORE plastic be made to replace all the plastic that we just throw away.

What really makes me mad is that producers and governments always tell consumers to recycle. There really aren't any good recycling options available to the consumer. Most plastic, even if it's "supposed to be" recyclable isn't. What plastic could be recycled isn't actually recyclable because it's contaminated with food and other things, making it unusable unless it's cleaned. Who is going to clean it? How? At who's expense?

Manufacturers are the ones putting out all the products in plastic packaging but they try to put the responsibility on US. We have to take the responsibility for THEIR bullshit decisions!