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Glass, metal. Then follow the first two "R's": Reduce and Reuse. Making an objective inventory of the contents of the trash bin can be enlightening on where all

Glass, metal. Then follow the first two "R's": Reduce and Reuse. Making an objective inventory of the contents of the trash bin can be enlightening on where all this plastic waste is coming from. I'm not saying it's that easy, but sigh: it's a start.

mensetmanusman 2y ago
Those are 10x heavier with associated energy and travel issues. Plastic is the best of no perfect options.
- dotancohen 2y ago
  Then maybe buying locally produced goods, when possible, is the answer. That reduces much of the emissions and congestion of shipping as well.
  - ars 2y ago
    Actually local increases emissions and congestion. Local means you grow food in places not really suitable for it, so you need extra energy to make that happen. Would like you like to grow tomatoes in a heated greenhouse, or out in the open? Local is also smaller quantity, so instead of huge efficiencies you need small individual shipments. This increases congestion. Local has some advantages in terms of community, but environmentally speaking? It's 100% bad.
    - StockHuman 2y ago
      That’s one way to define “local,” and in fairness to you, it is the most popular. But the other way of looking at local production - not unlike times before globalized agriculture - had one’s diet actually match the climate available. Perhaps tomatoes don’t grow where you are, but surely something else did: very few places were founded without an agricultural/fishing base. On a global scale, the huge (emissions) efficiency of loading a single enormous shipment of produce is only true on the receiving end, a number of farms far away all ran their own small deliveries to a depot for shipping at the start of the chain. There is no magic turbo-carrot-farm that harvests the world’s supply in one go.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    If everyone in a city bought local, what radius of farmland would need to exist outside the city?
  - numpad0 2y ago
    No, metal cans are okay, they melt easily and weigh not a lot more than (pure)plastics. It's glass that's heavy and wrong to transport. Glass look cool and makes good windows, but that's about it.
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago
  Plastic is great, it's extremely reusable, Tupperware containers last decades, then can be melted and reformed, or chipped and used in other products. Plastic per se isn't the problem, lack of reuse is, and that's a problem of not having to account for externalities. If it weren't for marketing then we could refill simple reusable packets.
- lm28469 2y ago
  That's if you skip the part where 80% of the shit we transport shouldn't even exist in the first place
- justinator 2y ago
  How far should I have to ship a glass bottle? Maybe just to the bottling company. Coco Cola has one 30 miles away. Don't have to melt it down and recast, just clean, refill. I wonder how the energy expenditure compares to having a 10x lighter bottle 1/2 way around the world? (to then be thrown away). Plastic beer bottles it seems are not as popular as glass and the world drinks a lot of beer. Are there advantages to glass for beer?
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    Yes, complex flavor profiles of drinks like beer or wine (which can be stored for a long time) are negatively impacted by diffusion of various small molecules in and out of plastic bottles. This matters less for water or sugar water, but even Pepsi cares about the thickness of plastic used for something it knows will be drunk within a few months of production.

mensetmanusman 2y ago

Those are 10x heavier with associated energy and travel issues. Plastic is the best of no perfect options.

dotancohen 2y ago
Then maybe buying locally produced goods, when possible, is the answer. That reduces much of the emissions and congestion of shipping as well.
- ars 2y ago
  Actually local increases emissions and congestion. Local means you grow food in places not really suitable for it, so you need extra energy to make that happen. Would like you like to grow tomatoes in a heated greenhouse, or out in the open? Local is also smaller quantity, so instead of huge efficiencies you need small individual shipments. This increases congestion. Local has some advantages in terms of community, but environmentally speaking? It's 100% bad.
  - StockHuman 2y ago
    That’s one way to define “local,” and in fairness to you, it is the most popular. But the other way of looking at local production - not unlike times before globalized agriculture - had one’s diet actually match the climate available. Perhaps tomatoes don’t grow where you are, but surely something else did: very few places were founded without an agricultural/fishing base. On a global scale, the huge (emissions) efficiency of loading a single enormous shipment of produce is only true on the receiving end, a number of farms far away all ran their own small deliveries to a depot for shipping at the start of the chain. There is no magic turbo-carrot-farm that harvests the world’s supply in one go.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  If everyone in a city bought local, what radius of farmland would need to exist outside the city?
- numpad0 2y ago
  No, metal cans are okay, they melt easily and weigh not a lot more than (pure)plastics. It's glass that's heavy and wrong to transport. Glass look cool and makes good windows, but that's about it.
pbhjpbhj 2y ago
Plastic is great, it's extremely reusable, Tupperware containers last decades, then can be melted and reformed, or chipped and used in other products. Plastic per se isn't the problem, lack of reuse is, and that's a problem of not having to account for externalities. If it weren't for marketing then we could refill simple reusable packets.
lm28469 2y ago
That's if you skip the part where 80% of the shit we transport shouldn't even exist in the first place
justinator 2y ago
How far should I have to ship a glass bottle? Maybe just to the bottling company. Coco Cola has one 30 miles away. Don't have to melt it down and recast, just clean, refill. I wonder how the energy expenditure compares to having a 10x lighter bottle 1/2 way around the world? (to then be thrown away). Plastic beer bottles it seems are not as popular as glass and the world drinks a lot of beer. Are there advantages to glass for beer?
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Yes, complex flavor profiles of drinks like beer or wine (which can be stored for a long time) are negatively impacted by diffusion of various small molecules in and out of plastic bottles. This matters less for water or sugar water, but even Pepsi cares about the thickness of plastic used for something it knows will be drunk within a few months of production.