4 ms·

It's actually a consumer choice thing. Poor countries tend to sell Coke in glass bottles because it's cheaper to run a bottle deposit program and refill them th

It's actually a consumer choice thing. Poor countries tend to sell Coke in glass bottles because it's cheaper to run a bottle deposit program and refill them than to sell plastic that just gets thrown away. But consumers don't want glass, it breaks and it's heavy; they want disposable plastic. In fact, for decades consumers have actually bought coke from stores in plastic bags with straws, and collect the bottle deposit at purchase time. (I grew up drinking coke from plastic bags) People need to start taking responsibility for their complicity in the world's problems, rather than blaming everyone but themselves and demanding someone else fix all their problems and pay for it too.

wakawaka28 2y ago
Plastic bags make sense when people are carrying all their groceries on foot from the store to their homes. If the same people had to put their groceries in a car to be jostled about, I bet they wouldn't like their liquids in bags that can leak and leave a mess in their expensive cars. I think a lot of people like glass, but I haven't seen a recycler want it in a long time. So is it more responsible to buy glass that you know is going in the trash, or plastic that might be recycled? It's not obvious.
- DoingIsLearning 2y ago
  > but I haven't seen a recycler want it Perhaps that is a US problem, in Europe glass recycling is fairly Universal at all recycling centres and most neighbourhood streets have below ground waste containers for glass. At least in my reality the issue is that Retailers have virtually eliminated glass alternatives from supermarket shelves. Other than beer/wine and some 1.5L juice bottles, pretty much everything else is plastic, even when the same product is also manufactured in glass, it simply does not exist in supermarket shelves. You have to go to very large distribution centres to actual find glass alternatives for everyday products. So to me turning this into a consumer issue is naive.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    Glass beverage bottles are unpopular in the US too, but at least in places I've lived the recyclers don't want glass anymore. I think the only commercial glass recycling that is energy-efficient (that is, competitive with using plastic) is bottle washing. If you buy beer, wine, or anything else in glass here, which is not exactly rare, you usually have to just throw the bottles away. I would be interested to know if your country subsidizes the glass recycling or if it is legally mandated. I'm also curious about relevant regulations in the US too. It might be the case that we require a level of sterilization for bottles that is more strict than other countries, that makes it uneconomical to recycle. There are so many possible factors. Recycling is a very low-profit industry and it is often operated at a loss. In some cases the recyclers throw away almost everything, keeping only certain easily separable stuff like aluminum cans and clean cardboard.
    - DoingIsLearning 2y ago
      As far as I understand, if you return glass into a recycling centre or to waste management anywhere here it will always be for cullet glass. Bottle washing here only happens if you return the bottles at a supermarket or other retailers, who then return it (unbroken) to the original manufacturer.
      - wakawaka28 2y ago
        I haven't tried turning it in at a recycling center. That seems more likely to work. I was talking about roadside and public recycling bins, which don't seem to welcome glass anymore.
  - 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
    Capitalist enterprises look for the cheapest option, unless the consumer demands otherwise. Bottles are heavy and fragile, which means increased transportation costs and losses. If consumers demanded glass, they'd charge us a premium and happily provide glass, and make a profit off our demand. Organic food is a perfect example. They incur more losses and operations are more expensive, but they charge a premium and profit from our demand. In other cases they remove harms when it threatens their profits. Antibiotics, rBST, etc in milk are scary, so milk producers remove them and advertise they're now less bad for us, so we buy that milk more. But in order for those cases to happen, consumers had to demand the product change. And the only reason consumers demanded it was fear. They were afraid they were being poisoned, so they demanded change; producers feared for their profits, and made changes. Sadly, consumers don't give a shit about the environment. If they did they would have demanded an end to disposable plastics decades ago, when it was widely known the kinds of pollution the packaging was causing. We didn't care then, we don't care now. Not enough to act, anyway. But luckily, and kind of amazingly, "Government" is doing what it's supposed to do. Very slowly, laws are being passed at local and state level to set deadlines to curtail or eliminate disposable products. Sometimes the laws have no teeth, but it's a step in the right direction (even if it does take decades to take effect). But lobbyists will fight this and try to convince consumers the change is bad, so the companies don't have to spend money to change. If consumers want the change to happen soon, they must demand it themselves. They do it when they're afraid just fine; waiting for them to be afraid enough may be too late.

wakawaka28 2y ago

Plastic bags make sense when people are carrying all their groceries on foot from the store to their homes. If the same people had to put their groceries in a car to be jostled about, I bet they wouldn't like their liquids in bags that can leak and leave a mess in their expensive cars. I think a lot of people like glass, but I haven't seen a recycler want it in a long time. So is it more responsible to buy glass that you know is going in the trash, or plastic that might be recycled? It's not obvious.

DoingIsLearning 2y ago
> but I haven't seen a recycler want it Perhaps that is a US problem, in Europe glass recycling is fairly Universal at all recycling centres and most neighbourhood streets have below ground waste containers for glass. At least in my reality the issue is that Retailers have virtually eliminated glass alternatives from supermarket shelves. Other than beer/wine and some 1.5L juice bottles, pretty much everything else is plastic, even when the same product is also manufactured in glass, it simply does not exist in supermarket shelves. You have to go to very large distribution centres to actual find glass alternatives for everyday products. So to me turning this into a consumer issue is naive.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  Glass beverage bottles are unpopular in the US too, but at least in places I've lived the recyclers don't want glass anymore. I think the only commercial glass recycling that is energy-efficient (that is, competitive with using plastic) is bottle washing. If you buy beer, wine, or anything else in glass here, which is not exactly rare, you usually have to just throw the bottles away. I would be interested to know if your country subsidizes the glass recycling or if it is legally mandated. I'm also curious about relevant regulations in the US too. It might be the case that we require a level of sterilization for bottles that is more strict than other countries, that makes it uneconomical to recycle. There are so many possible factors. Recycling is a very low-profit industry and it is often operated at a loss. In some cases the recyclers throw away almost everything, keeping only certain easily separable stuff like aluminum cans and clean cardboard.
  - DoingIsLearning 2y ago
    As far as I understand, if you return glass into a recycling centre or to waste management anywhere here it will always be for cullet glass. Bottle washing here only happens if you return the bottles at a supermarket or other retailers, who then return it (unbroken) to the original manufacturer.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      I haven't tried turning it in at a recycling center. That seems more likely to work. I was talking about roadside and public recycling bins, which don't seem to welcome glass anymore.
- 0xbadcafebee 2y ago
  Capitalist enterprises look for the cheapest option, unless the consumer demands otherwise. Bottles are heavy and fragile, which means increased transportation costs and losses. If consumers demanded glass, they'd charge us a premium and happily provide glass, and make a profit off our demand. Organic food is a perfect example. They incur more losses and operations are more expensive, but they charge a premium and profit from our demand. In other cases they remove harms when it threatens their profits. Antibiotics, rBST, etc in milk are scary, so milk producers remove them and advertise they're now less bad for us, so we buy that milk more. But in order for those cases to happen, consumers had to demand the product change. And the only reason consumers demanded it was fear. They were afraid they were being poisoned, so they demanded change; producers feared for their profits, and made changes. Sadly, consumers don't give a shit about the environment. If they did they would have demanded an end to disposable plastics decades ago, when it was widely known the kinds of pollution the packaging was causing. We didn't care then, we don't care now. Not enough to act, anyway. But luckily, and kind of amazingly, "Government" is doing what it's supposed to do. Very slowly, laws are being passed at local and state level to set deadlines to curtail or eliminate disposable products. Sometimes the laws have no teeth, but it's a step in the right direction (even if it does take decades to take effect). But lobbyists will fight this and try to convince consumers the change is bad, so the companies don't have to spend money to change. If consumers want the change to happen soon, they must demand it themselves. They do it when they're afraid just fine; waiting for them to be afraid enough may be too late.