You make the bottle significantly more durable, thicker plastic that don’t add too much to the weight. Charge 100nt for the bottle. You’ll find people will not be throwing those away.
They will if they don’t have a use for them, there are only so many bottles you can have in your life.
People will just find ways around it.
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Plastic, glass, paper etc is all taxed by the EPA by the kg.
It serves no meaningful purpose.
Government spending some money on more sustainable packaging should be a pretty huge priority.
Instead, epa and ither bodies just keep revising rheir rules. They ban retain things all the time. Like the plastic in paper lunchboxes, cups etc
Make the tax higher.
Yup. Also actually recycle it post pickup from the consumer. That’s an issue with loads if things. Laws making for example soda bottles to not be different mixed plastics would aid a LOT in actual recycling. There are many easy things that can be done. Even more difficult things that need to be done. But, here we are.
We pay about $0.4-$1.2 per glass jar I think.
Bags have higher per kg rate, but you can store a lot of material in them compared to jars which is why food is in them.
Things like organic foods must be sealed in packaging or the fda fines you. Lots of laws already, few meaningful/effective one.
First principle thinking is needed.
Sigh. PET bottles are collected and turned into pellets, which in turn become shoes, fabric for clothes, etc. That has been done a while.
This article claims 90% of plastic bottles are recycled.
And if you want to exchange them for money for yourself, look for a exchange machine, usually next to a 711 or Family mart.
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From a sanitary standpoint, plastic is more porous than glass, so there’s that much more nooks and crannies that mold can burrow into and thus a hotbed for contagions; even my washbasin for washing my face gets moldy by the time I get off work if I don’t thoroughly drain it, whereas it takes about a week or two for the sink or toilet to be visibly dirty despite having a pool of water at the bottom of the toilet. It’s less consequential for something that can be washed in between (e.g. bowls, utensils, or though for other purposes, washbasins), but bottles are sealed containers, and either way, is the reason I try not to scrub plastic as to make it more porous for that reason, which makes sanitizing it a bit more tough… But sealable plastic containers are usually made in a decently sterile environment and (hopefully) the product within is made to a good standard, which is how it avoids contamination.
Also after a certain amount of time (although you’d have to be using that bottle in extreme environments for YEARS to get to this point and the bottle will be very obviously on its last leg), plastic can get brittle, and that’s something most manufacturers don’t want from a liability standpoint.
TL;DR: Plastic is tougher to sanitize in order for it to be reusable, plus it may not be as durable in certain situations.
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Plastic with UV stabilizers can be out there for YEARS and not go bad. Buoys are made from these.
My argument is design bottles for reuse, and charge a ton of money for it. It makes customers want to return them. Sanitizing is a problem but I’m sure good engineering can fix this. I know plastic can have additives added to it to make it germ resistant (meaning it’s next to impossible for germs to feed off it or grow on it). Plastic bottles are already well engineered (soda bottles are shaped a certain way for a reason)
But we gotta have the will to do it.
They aren’t food safe though, that was the above posts point. Which is accurate.
Glass can be heated and cleaned, plastic can’t. Plastic can be cleaned via chemical and mechanical rubbing but both have drawbacks. It’s why only things like Taiwan beer glass bottles have a real deposit refund like in the west. For these obvious realities and logistics with scale.
This also leads to the issue of dispable with so many plastics. For a very large amount of reasons, not just about sterilizing existing containers for reuse.
Glass is always better. Drawbacks are weight (shipping costs) and fragility/flexibility.
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I do wonder about using gorilla glass to make thinner walled glass bottles that is light and can be sterilized, but doesn’t break as easily?
Please just ban plastic packaging.
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And our food, forests, wildlife. It ain’t great. We really do WASTE a LOT of unnecessary plastics…I bet some of these trillions of giv money could find some better packaging alternatives…
It can still break under the right circumstances, plus the process needed to make aluminum borosilicate glass (Gorilla Glass) is more complex and thus more expensive… Most manufacturers would only opt for the lowest cost “good enough” option; most glass bottles aren’t even tempered for this reason.
Maybe the better option are PLA bottles, but adaptation has been somewhat slow since of course, corporations are more about profits than overall impact.
The issue with pla/biodegradable etc is they still send out mass amounts of microplastics into the environment. They seem like a poor alternative. I think we can develop better systems of water proofing without plastics at all. It seems strange a country like Taiwan, with its financial ability and environmental / economic motivations, doesn’t develope and patent the absolute crap out of this. It would be a multi billion dollar industry overnight.
Making more logical packaging regulations would be wise as well. Walking into say Costco, or seeing how mcdonalds operates, is pretty extreme example of what not to allow. But that’s a band aid, not a solution.
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If we’re talking about bottles for reuse, you want them to be non biodegradable. Biodegradable plastic is likely where microplastic came from in the first place.
If we reuse and recycle it then it doesn’t have to be biodegradable.
I remember Ronald McDonald’s saying reduce, reuse, and recycle.
I doubt it. The reality is that there simply aren’t that many unique classes of materials for applications like this (bulk packaging etc.).
All of the potential alternatives (paper/cardboard, glass, metal, wood…) have their own sets of problems that limit their suitability, and any future materials are going to be something broadly classifiable as a “plastic” and closely resembling one. That is, something polymer-based, synthetic, and moldable. The only possible exception I can think of is silicone, which might not be regarded as a plastic according to some definitions (because it’s not really organic and is more of a rubber)… but it still looks pretty similar to a plastic for most purposes.
So I’m not sure what you imagine as a workable alternative to plastics that could be discovered/developed in the future? I think the only viable option is really more sustainable and biodegradable plastics, but those are still plastics.
Well, I disagree. I feel the only real problem to overcome is water proofing and food/medical safety. Thise are legitimate uses of plastics that can still prevail. The A4 cardboard sheet enclosing a single SD card at Costco is just frankly retarded. And, unethical.
Most packaging, such as a cardboard hanger for xyz product needing to be plastic laminated for shininess is also retarded. There are true legitimate uses for plastics. Most of what we see in a box store, as far as packaging goes, is not necessary. easily avoided.
I feel that is overtly obvious. We can discuss more if need be. But I am mentioning the governemnt machine of public funds for harder problems to solve, such as actual water proofing. This should be a priority. Pre plastic we used rubber. Then synthetic/oil became cheaper. Now we have far better systems for producing biological products without the need for growing trees. Gmo, bio this and that. These are already old teks and tech. I feel this should be a priority, and there is large appeal to this. Even single fungal forms to replace Styrofoam packaging. Somethings things are just that easy and replaceable.
Basic packaging, government can easily ban certain things and companies won’t care because the vast majority of packaging is based off of perceived marketing advantage, not logistics. The larger issue is that no one actually gives even half a fuck. Proof is in the pudding, I feel, on this issue.
What exactly are you disagreeing with? Go ahead and name/explain these magical new classes of materials you seem to be imagining. The ones that aren’t plastic but will replace plastic*. They don’t exist, and using older materials like glass and metal for many of these applications comes with its own set of problems (e.g., too heavy, too brittle, too expensive, too chemically unstable, and the environmental impacts of mining).
I haven’t said anything to suggest that I support excess/unnecessary packaging.
(*Edit: Just to be clear here, I’m talking about major consumer applications. Not niche applications where there might be some alternatives.)
Paper with plastic coating isn’t necessary for vast majority of retail packaging. They can wax coat it or something. The plastic coating makes it much harder to recycle it. Paper card packaging doesn’t need to be durable, it just needs to be durable enough to last on the store shelf.
You’re not telling me anything I don’t know, TL. Or anything I wrote about. I’m not sure why you replied to me, unless it was a mistake.