4 ms·
Reusable glass bottles still fare better ecologically, if they are filled close by, which goes against the centralisation driven by our economy.
by legulere 8y ago
Reusable glass bottles still fare better ecologically, if they are filled close by, which goes against the centralisation driven by our economy.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoI'm not sure its an unalloyed gain. It takes considerable energy to sanitize food-grade bottles for re-use. That's not free to the environment.
- Avamander 8y agoCould be done with water and renewable energy. Recycling water is way easier than plastics.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoThe magic wand 'renewable energy' doesn't make every energy-intensive task green. Going back to sanitizing every container used in a country is a huge energy sink - probably larger than all green energy there is.
- Avamander 8y agoAnd going back and recycling every piece of plastic bottle isn't a huge energy sink taking more than all the green energy there is, isn't going to produce more waste and require new raw materials?
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoNope. Because vendors switched to plastic, because it costs less (in energy etc)
- Avamander 8y agoLess to produce or less to recycle? :)
- Spooky23 8y agoIt's not the big of a deal. The farm I get my milk from has a machine like this: http://www.aquatech-bm.com/bottle-washer-bottle-cleaner/ http://www.aquatech-bm.com/bottle-washer-bottle-cleaner/ It's little different than a heavy duty dishwasher that you find at a restaurant. They get much more efficient as you scale up -- when a large brewery washes beer bottles the costs are negligible. The inefficiency introduced are externalized costs that get accounted for. Instead of paying a bulk hauler or the city to haul, acquire landfill, etc, you end up with a closed loop. The same thing with other packaging. Plastic clamshell packaging reduces shrink for the retailer (thus providing ROI), but the inconvenience of cutting it open and cost of dealing with disposition of the waste is a consumer/local government problem.