2 ms·

I'd love to see a standardized sized titanium reusable wide mouth jars, that could be returned and reused almost indefinitely. While titanium has a high upfron

I'd love to see a standardized sized titanium reusable wide mouth jars, that could be returned and reused almost indefinitely. While titanium has a high upfront embodied energy, it is super light weight and doesn't react with most things in our environment that you would expect purchase in it. One could imagine purchasing food (sauce, milk, oil) then reuse it to hold your left overs. You could reheat on a stove, but sadly not in the microwave. With a cozy of some sort you could even hold hot and cold beverages. Bonus points would be that you could easily compare prices as a 1 liter jar of one marinara sauce would be the same as another brands jar. On the same note, I'd love to go back to reusable glass jars that were manufactured for reuse and cleaning capabilities. Sadly they are a bit heavier and more fragile than a titanium version, but at least you can look into the contents.

sershe 4y ago
Something similar was already done in Soviet Union with glass containers (standard for obvious reasons) - instead of being recycled the usual way, they were washed and reused, so you could return them for a non-trivial fee[1]. I wonder if the only reason it doesn't work in the US for big companies like Coca Cola that have existing distribution network that could be used to e.g. collect intact standard bottles for a discount, is it's just not worth it, cause everyone is too rich to bother returning the bottles. Or maybe the US is more efficient so it's not worth it economically to bother collecting, transporting and cleaning them (or maybe it wasn't even economical in the USSR, I dunno). [1] the joke is, the first derivative of a drinking session is another drinking session you can have with alcohol purchased with bottle return fees from the initial one; and a really good party must have a non-zero 2nd derivative.

sershe 4y ago

Something similar was already done in Soviet Union with glass containers (standard for obvious reasons) - instead of being recycled the usual way, they were washed and reused, so you could return them for a non-trivial fee[1]. I wonder if the only reason it doesn't work in the US for big companies like Coca Cola that have existing distribution network that could be used to e.g. collect intact standard bottles for a discount, is it's just not worth it, cause everyone is too rich to bother returning the bottles. Or maybe the US is more efficient so it's not worth it economically to bother collecting, transporting and cleaning them (or maybe it wasn't even economical in the USSR, I dunno). [1] the joke is, the first derivative of a drinking session is another drinking session you can have with alcohol purchased with bottle return fees from the initial one; and a really good party must have a non-zero 2nd derivative.