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It complicates transportation to sell all goods in bulk. I'm glad that stores don't charge an extra 1.5 cents for the plastic bag around every gallon of milk an
by stephengillie 8y ago
It complicates transportation to sell all goods in bulk. I'm glad that stores don't charge an extra 1.5 cents for the plastic bag around every gallon of milk and pound of rice.
You, yourself, might have enough responsibility and self-control to prioritize cleaning your containers, but this is not true for all humans. The store would lose business if their competitor sold milk already in bags or boxes, but you had to bring your own milk bag to their store. And someone's bags might have bacterial or other contaminants and get them sick, then they blame the store and get the health department to shut them down. (Tangent: Why is most milk still sold in boxes, and not in plastic?)
Glass is fragile, metals cause unexpected chemical reactions, wood is permeable & requires additional materials (wax, glue) to seal properly, and cardboard has poor durability.
- ianai 8y agoYou might not see the container cost on the receipt but the balance is there. The balance to society to clean up your spent containers are not on your bill. Tell me how you’d solve that problem without generic containers and then I’ll entertain your suggestion(s).
- A2017U1 8y agoMilk has been sold in glass multiuse bottles for far longer than in plastic single-use.
- stephengillie 8y agoWhy did we switch?
- TylerE 8y agoSpoilage. Glass breaks, and is also thick and heavy = higher shipping costs.
- ianai 8y agoAnd they used to be delivered to your doorstep each morning. You’d leave the empties out for them to reuse.
- stephengillie 8y agoWhat would the dairy do if someone broke a glass bottle - who pays for it? What if some ignoble soul starts stealing these glass bottles from customer porches to get recycling money for them?
- lovich 8y agoI think he might be referencing things like shrink wrapped banannas, or plastic boxes around Tupperware containers, or when you buy a bag of something and every single individual piece has it's own wrapping inside the bag. There is a lot of completely unnecessary packaging that companies use because it gets them a 0.02% increase in profit and they don't have to pay the actual costs of the plastic pollution they are creating
- ianai 8y agoThere’s not going to be one solution to all things. That’s a strawman argument. I’m for allowing for ways to not use so much plastic. The technology exists - for instance, the oatmeal cubes I buy at Trader Joe’s could be charged to me one at a time and at the time they leave their container. It’d take take some doing, but it’s doable. For people not willing or able to provide a container then sell them the old plastic covered cubes of oatmeal in boxes two at a time. And charge them more.
- stephengillie 8y ago> the oatmeal cubes I buy at Trader Joe’s could be charged to me one at a time and at the time they leave their container. The Internet of Things can help this to become a reality, with sensors on the box lid and an internet connection. Why charge a customer only once when you can charge them twice?
- ianai 8y agoI’ll rephrase: could be charged to me one at a time when they leave their container
- stephengillie 8y agoWhen you buy the box of oatmeal cubes, you're buying the right to buy oatmeal cubes. When you remove them from the container is when you actually purchase the cubes. Similar to a Costco card, or buying a phone to access apps in the app store.