4 ms·

Plastic bottles weigh less and can be made thinner. Transportation costs dominate the cost of most consumables

b112 3y ago
Which sort of highlights local vs national production and shipping. The local milkman of the 50s, did better with glass collecting and delivering milk. The national enterprise benefits, as you say, from weight reduction.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  The enterprise "benefits" because it completely off-loads the environmental impact to the tax payers.
  - b112 3y ago
    It does with glass, and the cleaning solutions, and the water used during re-use. I'm sure glass is far more environmentally sound, but to claim that glass production, glass cleaning(and the harsh chemicals and their production cost to the environment), and water for flushing afterwards are not relevant, would be wrong. So every business off-loads some environmental impact to the tax payer. My point? While your statement is true, it has nothing to do with how the business decision is made re: cost to the business. The metric used there is "what saves the business money".
- fendy3002 3y ago
  And as the cost of workforce increase, or in order to generate even more profit, using plastics enables industrial automation and removal of the delivery workforce.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    German Flaschenpost kindly disagrees.
- twobitshifter 3y ago
  The only way we get this hyper optimized bottle cap is with a dominant global ketchup superpower. They will save enormous amounts of money with this cap, because of the giant volume of sales that they do.
oven9342 3y ago
Glass bottles have to be reprocessed later. Forever pollutants offer more benefits for the industry. Short term benefit and profit margin dominate the calculation of if life environments deserve to continue unpolluted or they deserve to be destroyed in the name of compound interest.
throwaway88409 3y ago
Transport cost is one factor, but even in countries where glass bottles are sold alongside plastic ones they are unpopular to the end user themselves because of their inconvenience. The common 2kg×6 PET bottles format is too heavy for glass bottles, so you end up paying more for heavier 1.5kgx6 bottles that are going to last you less.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  Now check the price per litre and ask your decision makers to introduce a deposit system for glass and plastic bottles.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Ketchup should be in a jar rather than bottle really. You can't get the ketchup out of glass bottles. Or atleast 5yo me couldn't. And that was about the last time I had those.
  - biftek 3y ago
    I never understood why we put condiments in slim/squeeze bottles, I would love to buy a jar of ketchup.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > because of their inconvenience IMO it's simply habits no one would buy beer or wine in a plastic bottle, because it feels wrong (and it is if you ask me). Here in Italy nobody in their right mind buys tomato sauce in plastic bottles, our granmas would come to haunt us at night if we did. but we buy water in plastic bottles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - lupire 3y ago
    Trying to make sense of the world is the surest way to go mad.
  - callalex 3y ago
    Boxed wine comes in a plastic container. Beer goes off rather quickly without excellent storage, which is why cheap beer has settled on aluminum cans which preserve well while being cheaper and lighter than glass.
morsch 3y ago
> Transportation costs dominate the cost of most consumables That was surprising to me and, uh, no, they don't, unless you're considering building materials (i.e. rocks). It's not easy to find numbers, but for milk in Germany, it appears to be around 10%, about the same as packaging. Milk should be worse than many other products because it's cheap and heavy, on the other hand it's rarely shipped over great distances. [1] Another report [2] considers transportation costs relative to the value of the goods transported, which isn't exactly the same as "how much of the consumer price is transportation", but surely related, and has 2.7% for foodstuffs (and 55% for rocks). I mean, I'm sure it varies widely for different kinds of consumables, but overall, transporting stuff is cheap. I think even in terms of CO2, which is certainly underrepresented in cost currently, production dominates transport for most goods in a grocery store, apart from produce shipped by air. [1] https://www.agrarheute.com/tier/rind/78-cent-fuer-trinkmilch-so-setzt-preis-zusammen-440859 https://www.agrarheute.com/tier/rind/78-cent-fuer-trinkmilch... [2] https://bmdv.bund.de/SharedDocs/DE/Anlage/G/MKS-Wissenschaftliche-Untersuchungen/studie-anteil-transportkosten.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://bmdv.bund.de/SharedDocs/DE/Anlage/G/MKS-Wissenschaft... (Tabelle 8)

b112 3y ago

Which sort of highlights local vs national production and shipping. The local milkman of the 50s, did better with glass collecting and delivering milk. The national enterprise benefits, as you say, from weight reduction.

actionfromafar 3y ago
The enterprise "benefits" because it completely off-loads the environmental impact to the tax payers.
- b112 3y ago
  It does with glass, and the cleaning solutions, and the water used during re-use. I'm sure glass is far more environmentally sound, but to claim that glass production, glass cleaning(and the harsh chemicals and their production cost to the environment), and water for flushing afterwards are not relevant, would be wrong. So every business off-loads some environmental impact to the tax payer. My point? While your statement is true, it has nothing to do with how the business decision is made re: cost to the business. The metric used there is "what saves the business money".
fendy3002 3y ago
And as the cost of workforce increase, or in order to generate even more profit, using plastics enables industrial automation and removal of the delivery workforce.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  German Flaschenpost kindly disagrees.
twobitshifter 3y ago
The only way we get this hyper optimized bottle cap is with a dominant global ketchup superpower. They will save enormous amounts of money with this cap, because of the giant volume of sales that they do.

oven9342 3y ago

Glass bottles have to be reprocessed later. Forever pollutants offer more benefits for the industry. Short term benefit and profit margin dominate the calculation of if life environments deserve to continue unpolluted or they deserve to be destroyed in the name of compound interest.

throwaway88409 3y ago

Transport cost is one factor, but even in countries where glass bottles are sold alongside plastic ones they are unpopular to the end user themselves because of their inconvenience. The common 2kg×6 PET bottles format is too heavy for glass bottles, so you end up paying more for heavier 1.5kgx6 bottles that are going to last you less.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
Now check the price per litre and ask your decision makers to introduce a deposit system for glass and plastic bottles.
rightbyte 3y ago
Ketchup should be in a jar rather than bottle really. You can't get the ketchup out of glass bottles. Or atleast 5yo me couldn't. And that was about the last time I had those.
- biftek 3y ago
  I never understood why we put condiments in slim/squeeze bottles, I would love to buy a jar of ketchup.
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> because of their inconvenience IMO it's simply habits no one would buy beer or wine in a plastic bottle, because it feels wrong (and it is if you ask me). Here in Italy nobody in their right mind buys tomato sauce in plastic bottles, our granmas would come to haunt us at night if we did. but we buy water in plastic bottles ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- lupire 3y ago
  Trying to make sense of the world is the surest way to go mad.
- callalex 3y ago
  Boxed wine comes in a plastic container. Beer goes off rather quickly without excellent storage, which is why cheap beer has settled on aluminum cans which preserve well while being cheaper and lighter than glass.

morsch 3y ago

> Transportation costs dominate the cost of most consumables That was surprising to me and, uh, no, they don't, unless you're considering building materials (i.e. rocks). It's not easy to find numbers, but for milk in Germany, it appears to be around 10%, about the same as packaging. Milk should be worse than many other products because it's cheap and heavy, on the other hand it's rarely shipped over great distances. [1] Another report [2] considers transportation costs relative to the value of the goods transported, which isn't exactly the same as "how much of the consumer price is transportation", but surely related, and has 2.7% for foodstuffs (and 55% for rocks). I mean, I'm sure it varies widely for different kinds of consumables, but overall, transporting stuff is cheap. I think even in terms of CO2, which is certainly underrepresented in cost currently, production dominates transport for most goods in a grocery store, apart from produce shipped by air. [1] https://www.agrarheute.com/tier/rind/78-cent-fuer-trinkmilch-so-setzt-preis-zusammen-440859 https://www.agrarheute.com/tier/rind/78-cent-fuer-trinkmilch... [2] https://bmdv.bund.de/SharedDocs/DE/Anlage/G/MKS-Wissenschaftliche-Untersuchungen/studie-anteil-transportkosten.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://bmdv.bund.de/SharedDocs/DE/Anlage/G/MKS-Wissenschaft... (Tabelle 8)