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And yet no national government will ban single use plastic bottles. Where I live we are back to paper grocery bags, which I like better. But I can drive a few

by jmclnx 3y ago

And yet no national government will ban single use plastic bottles. Where I live we are back to paper grocery bags, which I like better. But I can drive a few miles in state to get plastic bags for groceries. I am old enough to have seen paper and glass replaced by plastic, time to go back and charge at least 1 USD per bottle to encourage recycling instead of 5 Cents. For people out side of the US, we are almost at the point were nothing costs less than 1 USD.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
> And yet no national government will ban single use plastic bottles. The Nordic countries have a deposit system by which the population is highly incentivized to return the bottle to the supermarket, the deposit is so high and one can get cash back, not just store credit. Even if a consumer feels well-off enough to just throw the bottle in a normal bin (or, as often the case with people boozing in parks, is too drunk to dispose of the bottle), hungry students or migrants will seize on the chance to return the bottle themselves and get the deposit back. This system seems so effective that no one even talks about a ban.
bzzzt 3y ago
Think of all the fuel spent transporting and cleaning tons of glassware and tell me if you think that's 'greener'.
- mariusor 3y ago
  As opposed to blowing the glass from scratch and then transporting it? Definitely.
sumtechguy 3y ago
that is the annoying thing of all of this. plastic one use bottles have a nice use in some cases. we at one point had a very nice reduce reuse recycle system in place for glass bottles. the caps were easy to pick out with magnets and the bottles could be reused hundreds of times before being needed to be crushed up into more bottles. it was also in the best interest of the companies to reduce how many bottles were out there. then we upended the whole thing thinking we can recycle the plastic.

by jmclnx 3y ago

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

> And yet no national government will ban single use plastic bottles. The Nordic countries have a deposit system by which the population is highly incentivized to return the bottle to the supermarket, the deposit is so high and one can get cash back, not just store credit. Even if a consumer feels well-off enough to just throw the bottle in a normal bin (or, as often the case with people boozing in parks, is too drunk to dispose of the bottle), hungry students or migrants will seize on the chance to return the bottle themselves and get the deposit back. This system seems so effective that no one even talks about a ban.

bzzzt 3y ago

Think of all the fuel spent transporting and cleaning tons of glassware and tell me if you think that's 'greener'.

mariusor 3y ago
As opposed to blowing the glass from scratch and then transporting it? Definitely.

sumtechguy 3y ago

that is the annoying thing of all of this. plastic one use bottles have a nice use in some cases. we at one point had a very nice reduce reuse recycle system in place for glass bottles. the caps were easy to pick out with magnets and the bottles could be reused hundreds of times before being needed to be crushed up into more bottles. it was also in the best interest of the companies to reduce how many bottles were out there. then we upended the whole thing thinking we can recycle the plastic.