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Re-used containers means reduced food-life after buying it or more preservatives, and higher chance of contamination. That will increase probability of food-poi

Re-used containers means reduced food-life after buying it or more preservatives, and higher chance of contamination. That will increase probability of food-poison. More wastage, more food needs to be produced, more environmental impact On the topic of reusing bags, I wish it were as simple as stopping using single-use plastic bags. The most "environmental-friendly" alternative seems to be reusable-bags made of polyester PET(recycled), but you still have to reuse them on average more than ~35 times in order to have less environmental impact. graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental-impact https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental... more info: https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#are-plastic-alternatives-better-for-the-environment https://ourworldindata.org/faq-on-plastics#are-plastic-alter... "In fact, studies have shown that when we compare environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy, water and resource use, plastic packaging tends to have a net positive impact. The impact of plastic production and handling is lower than the impacts which would result from food waste without packaging."

formerly_proven 5y ago
Similar situation when ditching plastic or composites for glass bottles. You need a large number of reuses of the glass container (break-even at around 30-50 reuses) or you will actually end up with a net increase in emissions. Recycling glass should be a last resort, as it requires a lot of energy (compared to e.g. recycling PET bottles). Because glass is so much heavier than plastic packaging, transport distances also need to be kept low (good in general). If transport distance exceeds something like 500 km, a glass bottle will always result in higher net emissions than a tetra pack, even if reused a billion times.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  But it's not just about emissions. Throw glass in a hedge, and it's pretty inert: a shiny rock. Throw plastic in a hedge, and it'll drift and get stuck around something, or get eaten by something that really shouldn't be eating it, or break up into tiny pieces and poison the entire food chain… likely all three, and more.
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    The biggest issue with plastic stuff in the wild is that things get stuck in it, especially marine wildlife, and birds and some other animals getting digestive problems when tearing it apart and eating it. On the flip side, most plastic packaging (mainly PE and PP) is non-toxic and biology doesn't really interact with it at all, even if you reduce it to microplastics. Yeah, that stuff is pretty much everywhere - but it's not really doing anything.
    - autoexec 5y ago
      > On the flip side, most plastic packaging (mainly PE and PP) is non-toxic and biology doesn't really interact with it at all, even if you reduce it to microplastics. Yeah, that stuff is pretty much everywhere - but it's not really doing anything. We're just starting to understand the harms plastics are causing to our health as we increasingly find plastics in places like our blood, our stool, and in our unborn children. There are already plenty of concerns about plastics resulting in hazardous exposure to endocrine disruptors. It's pervasive across the food chain as well. The idea that "it's not really doing anything" requires a dismal of all the harms we know about already and a remarkable level of optimism about what we will or wont find out in the future. for more info see: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/microplastics-revealed-in-placentas-unborn-babies https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/micropla... https://web.uri.edu/gemsnet/files/article_gemsnet.pdf https://web.uri.edu/gemsnet/files/article_gemsnet.pdf https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/plastics-pose-threat-to-human-health https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/p...
      - formerly_proven 5y ago
        No. Like I said, PE and PP - which are the vast majority of plastic packaging, especially for foods, because the materials you are referring to are not food-safe in the first place - are biologically inert. In fact, the monomers of PE and PP (ethylene and propene) are also not toxic, which is uncommon (compare with e.g. PVC: vinylchloride is toxic in all sorts of ways, polystyrol: styrene is also toxic in a few ways and damages DNA, teflon: it's monomer is also a carcinogen). This is important, because making plastics generally leaves precursors in the finished product: the more the worse the process control is, which costs money and requires know-how. See e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23862761/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23862761/ for a study looking at whether these are EDC; they're not: "There were no significant differences between test and control groups in vagina or uterine weight. Data suggest that effluents from plastic food containers do not appear to produce significant adverse effects according to Hershberger and uterotrophic assays." The single most problematic plastic for health purposes is PVC. PVC in its chemically pure form (difficult to do) isn't bad, either. But pure PVC is a hard, brittle plastic, which is not that useful. So most PVC products consist of a large portion of plasticizer; some products (e.g. cables and other types of very soft PVC) are actually more plasticizer than PVC both by weight and volume. Both PVC and toxic paints are a popular choice for all kinds of toys.
Bishizel 5y ago
Re-using glass containers is actually an extremely low chance of contamination. We have had easy glass sterilization techniques for a long time (most dishwashers have a sanitization cycle). Further, your shelf life won’t be significantly reduced, unless you just don’t clean your containers. The underlying argument you were responding to wasn’t really greenhouse gas focused. The discussion was mostly about plastic waste in the oceans and our environment. While it is possible the greenhouse gas budget is better with plastic, this doesn’t address the problem of accumulating forever waste within our environment.
- madacol 5y ago
  It's an interesting idea, let supermarkets do customer's sterilization and void closure of glass container after refilling, that sounds good +1. --- The graph I linked to was encompassing a wide variety of environmental impact https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental-impact https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental... If you just want greenhouse gas emission, this is the one https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-comparisons-ghg https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-comparisons-g... which interestingly show worse impact for single-use plastic bags

formerly_proven 5y ago

Similar situation when ditching plastic or composites for glass bottles. You need a large number of reuses of the glass container (break-even at around 30-50 reuses) or you will actually end up with a net increase in emissions. Recycling glass should be a last resort, as it requires a lot of energy (compared to e.g. recycling PET bottles). Because glass is so much heavier than plastic packaging, transport distances also need to be kept low (good in general). If transport distance exceeds something like 500 km, a glass bottle will always result in higher net emissions than a tetra pack, even if reused a billion times.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
But it's not just about emissions. Throw glass in a hedge, and it's pretty inert: a shiny rock. Throw plastic in a hedge, and it'll drift and get stuck around something, or get eaten by something that really shouldn't be eating it, or break up into tiny pieces and poison the entire food chain… likely all three, and more.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  The biggest issue with plastic stuff in the wild is that things get stuck in it, especially marine wildlife, and birds and some other animals getting digestive problems when tearing it apart and eating it. On the flip side, most plastic packaging (mainly PE and PP) is non-toxic and biology doesn't really interact with it at all, even if you reduce it to microplastics. Yeah, that stuff is pretty much everywhere - but it's not really doing anything.
  - autoexec 5y ago
    > On the flip side, most plastic packaging (mainly PE and PP) is non-toxic and biology doesn't really interact with it at all, even if you reduce it to microplastics. Yeah, that stuff is pretty much everywhere - but it's not really doing anything. We're just starting to understand the harms plastics are causing to our health as we increasingly find plastics in places like our blood, our stool, and in our unborn children. There are already plenty of concerns about plastics resulting in hazardous exposure to endocrine disruptors. It's pervasive across the food chain as well. The idea that "it's not really doing anything" requires a dismal of all the harms we know about already and a remarkable level of optimism about what we will or wont find out in the future. for more info see: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/microplastics-revealed-in-placentas-unborn-babies https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/22/micropla... https://web.uri.edu/gemsnet/files/article_gemsnet.pdf https://web.uri.edu/gemsnet/files/article_gemsnet.pdf https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/plastics-pose-threat-to-human-health https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/p...
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      No. Like I said, PE and PP - which are the vast majority of plastic packaging, especially for foods, because the materials you are referring to are not food-safe in the first place - are biologically inert. In fact, the monomers of PE and PP (ethylene and propene) are also not toxic, which is uncommon (compare with e.g. PVC: vinylchloride is toxic in all sorts of ways, polystyrol: styrene is also toxic in a few ways and damages DNA, teflon: it's monomer is also a carcinogen). This is important, because making plastics generally leaves precursors in the finished product: the more the worse the process control is, which costs money and requires know-how. See e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23862761/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23862761/ for a study looking at whether these are EDC; they're not: "There were no significant differences between test and control groups in vagina or uterine weight. Data suggest that effluents from plastic food containers do not appear to produce significant adverse effects according to Hershberger and uterotrophic assays." The single most problematic plastic for health purposes is PVC. PVC in its chemically pure form (difficult to do) isn't bad, either. But pure PVC is a hard, brittle plastic, which is not that useful. So most PVC products consist of a large portion of plasticizer; some products (e.g. cables and other types of very soft PVC) are actually more plasticizer than PVC both by weight and volume. Both PVC and toxic paints are a popular choice for all kinds of toys.

Bishizel 5y ago

Re-using glass containers is actually an extremely low chance of contamination. We have had easy glass sterilization techniques for a long time (most dishwashers have a sanitization cycle). Further, your shelf life won’t be significantly reduced, unless you just don’t clean your containers. The underlying argument you were responding to wasn’t really greenhouse gas focused. The discussion was mostly about plastic waste in the oceans and our environment. While it is possible the greenhouse gas budget is better with plastic, this doesn’t address the problem of accumulating forever waste within our environment.

madacol 5y ago
It's an interesting idea, let supermarkets do customer's sterilization and void closure of glass container after refilling, that sounds good +1. --- The graph I linked to was encompassing a wide variety of environmental impact https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental-impact https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-environmental... If you just want greenhouse gas emission, this is the one https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-comparisons-ghg https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grocery-bag-comparisons-g... which interestingly show worse impact for single-use plastic bags