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It's not that clear cut. Creating that glass bottle is far more costly environmentally, lugging its heavy weight around is also much more expensive, cleaning u
by howlgarnish 6y ago
It's not that clear cut. Creating that glass bottle is far more costly environmentally, lugging its heavy weight around is also much more expensive, cleaning used bottles has a considerable cost, and "thousands" of reuses also sounds optimistic since glass is so easily breakable.
- timClicks 6y agoContemporary glass bottles break easily. But historically bottles were much thicker and could be re-used dozens of times.
- dathinab 6y agoIn Germany you can buy milk in glass bottles in some super markets and they don't brake easily. And not only can they be reused, broken glass bottles can still be recycled.
- mrec 6y agoBeer too IIRC - you can buy it by the crate and return the empties to get a meaningful deposit back.
- Xylakant 6y agoThough most of the deposit for returning a beer crate is on the crate. The deposit for a regular beer bottle is 8cents - it used to be 15Pfennig, cut in half when the EUR was introduced. The problem is that you cannot easily raise the deposit value of a bottle and inflation has taken most of the value away.
- mrec 6y agoAh, I was there pre-Euro.
- ericd 6y agoWe use a milk/eggs/etc delivery service operated by a local farm, we’ve returned 100s of washed glass bottles without breaking any. They’re thick bottles designed for reuse, they’re not fragile. Despite that, the empties are a tiny fraction of the weight of a full plastic bottle. It seems like a pretty a clear, unmitigated win vs plastic with a local service.
- ars 6y ago> It seems like a pretty a clear, unmitigated win vs plastic Did you use hot water to wash them? Probably yes. Last time I did the math making them out of plastic saved energy vs heating water to wash glass (it was a close call, it depended on if you used a dishwasher vs sink washing). So it might seem environmental friendly, but if you run the numbers it's not necessarily so.
- bostonvaulter2 6y agoDoesn't that depend on where the electricity for the hot water comes from?
- rebuilder 6y agoI'm inclined to say "no", unless you're using a renewable energy source that would otherwise go unused. So excess locally produced power that can't be sold to the grid, essentially. Power markets are very liquid, so I tend to favour calculating your personal footprint based on the average co2 output of the grid, not the particular energy production method you've chosen. This makes it clear that even if you're paying for wind power, it's still better not to waste electricity.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoSome of that energy may become greener over time. There's also the final output of unrecyclable, possibly toxic (if heated in the sun) plastic vs glass which naturally degrades to ... sand?
- tonyarkles 6y ago
- Consultant32452 6y agoGlass is 100% recyclable infinite times with zero loss. If you shatter it, you can just melt it and reform it again.
- ars 6y agoGlass is also 100% pointless to recycle. The planet's crust is made of glass, it's not exactly a scarce resource, and old glass is environmentally harmless. And in the real world it's virtually never recycled, instead its crushed and used as landfill cover (they cover the trash each night to keep down vermin).
- proc0 6y ago"they cover the trash each night to keep down vermin" shudders
- simon1573 6y agoSand is starting to get scarce. https://www.businessinsider.com/global-sand-shortage-could-cause-damaging-effects-2018-12?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/global-sand-shortage-could-c...
- iguy 6y agoI can't read the article, but in my understanding, sand for concrete is what might be scarce. Because it has to have particles with the right degree of sharp corners. (IIRC, the Saudis import this from Australia or something, because their wind-blown sand is too round.) But glass is much easier.
- cedilla 6y agoIt's easier, cheaper and less energy intensive than producing new glass. Literally billions of tons of glass are recycled each year.
- TylerE 6y agoDo you think that energy is free? Do you think that heat comes from magic?
- dathinab 6y agoYou can also recycle broken glass, creating new glass from melting glass prices costs less energie then creating glass from scratch. Through there are limits for white glass this is much less the case for brown and green glass.
- searchableguy 6y agoAny problem with steel bottles? In India, they do use them often for delivering milk and it's very sturdy.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoThe problem in the US is that the seller has to use the method that results in them having the least liability in case something goes wrong. If they choose to use steel or glass, and it doesn't get cleaned properly, and it ends up causing damage, then they might be liable for damages. Their liability insurance will deny coverage for damages because they knowingly used a method that had a higher probability of harm than using new plastic. I'm sure there might be some way to ensure cleanliness of steel and glass, but it's probably cost prohibitive versus just using plastic, so it might cause the cost of the product to be too high to compete in the market.
- ericd 6y agoAny reason you can't just autoclave the glass for a bit?
- lotsofpulp 6y agoPossibly? I guess I assumed there's some cost based reason that plastic is preferred over glass, even excluding for transportation costs due to lower weight and less cleanup costs in case of accidents and glass breaking. It's probably a combination of all of these things, but the fact that no glass alternatives exist in the market in a similar price range as plastic options indicates there's an overall cost advantage for plastic.
- AngryData 6y agoThat is more expensive due to energy requirements over simple washes, but if the energy used to do that is renewable then that isn't a big deal. I think the big problem with autoclaving the glass is the time required for heating up and cooling off as thermal shock will break glass. That said, breaking more glass isn't a big deal because it is an inert material. And the sorting and cleaning of glass should be easier and cheaper than ever thanks to better automation and robotics.
- AngryData 6y agoAll of that could be done sustainably if the energy we generated and used was sustainable. Electric trucks and trains, clean energy to run the cleaning facility, even the glass furnaces themselves can be run off electricity which is great if it is clean energy. And when it does break? You can throw it away without worry because it is completely inert and breaks down into sand. Throw all your glass into a specific area on a coast line and the waves will turn it into sand for free. Throw it in a hole as fill material and nobody will ever care because it doesn't pollute.