The Human Condition

I know it's early but not a single comment about microplastics when discussing plastic vs glass? Y'all slacking.
- Whatcha talkin bout Willis?
  
  Wasn't he like 30 when they were filming that show?

As we all know, glass bottles are definitely not environmentally ruinous
"Return to tradition" may be tempting to some, but it's not an actual solution.
- A study comparing the environmental impacts of various single-use beverage containers has concluded that glass bottles have a greater overall impact than plastic bottles
  But... but... Glass is not single use. That is the whole point. I don't like this article.
  
  If you have single use bottles, aluminum like soda cans is lowest impact. But any reusable solution (meal, plastic, or glass) is much much better.
  
  But… but… Glass is not single use.
  When used for mass-produced beverages it very much is. Hell, plenty of beverages still use disposable glass bottles today, and that's not even getting into the fact that glass bottles use to be the standard, which is part of the reason why there's so much nostalgia around them.
  In the same vein, plastic is not inherently single-use. If we're comparing multi-use plastic and multi-use glass, then the same calculus applies.
- Hmm, if we're saying everything is done with green energy, could plastic bottles be carbon negative? Make the plastic from algie or bean feed stock so that it acts as a form of carbon capture.
- There is no solution that involves billions of people buying things.
  
  There is no solution that involves billions of people.
- Why are tetrapacks so good?
  I assumed they were terrible as laminated paper can't be recycled?
  As I write this I start to think this might be one of those things I learned in high school that might be total BS.
  
  Probably that ultimately even disposing of laminated paper is more environmentally friendly than the process of recycling energy-intensive materials like glass and plastic.
- The way you've worded that suggested to me that there isn't an actual solution so, for the people who didn't click through, I'll point out that the article concludes: "more sustainable alternatives to plastic bottles exist for all three types of beverage".
  That said, in order to compare the environmental impact, there has to be some kind of weighting between the energy cost of manufacture and the direct environmental pollution (discarded plastic choking marine animals; microplastics; etc). I'm not sure it even makes sense to try to combine them. Climate change is an imminent existential threat, whereas microplastics are poisoning us but not obviously killing us.
  I also wonder what they assumed for the energy source in the glass manufacture. It is mostly fossil fuels at present, but the industry is moving towards electrification.
- Is that a “straw man” I smell?
  
  He's literally offering you a direct rebuttal. Do you even know what the term "straw man" means?
  A straw man argument is a fallacy where someone sets up and attacks a position that is not being debated.
  Your meme DIRECTLY suggests a return to glass, and he literally offered up evidence that glass is not a solution because it's actually more ruinous to the environment than plastics are.
  
  Is that a “straw man” I smell?
  Alright, I'm sure you can explain what the meme means and how it has absolutely nothing to do with an implication that glass bottles are less environmentally ruinous than plastic. By all means, I'm all ears.

I think it's worth pointing out here that there are some major downsides to glass.
Weight. Glass is heavy, more weight means more energy (and emissions) required to transport it, and a lower product mass to packaging mass ratio.
Durability. Glass bottles have to be much thicker than plastic bottles to achieve the same strength, which means thicker glass and/or additional packaging is required to get the product to the consumer.
It would be interesting to see the total life cycle emissions for packaging types, and to figure out how many re-uses (if any) are required for a glass bottle to offset its pollution footprint compared to a disposable vs recycled plastic bottle.
I can't really advocate for plastic/aluminum/glass packaging, since I'm not aware of a study the considers the total footprint for each.
Ideally, we'd purchase our own containers, and then fill our own containers from a local bulk supply. Minimizing the weight and distance traveled while maximizing re-use is key.
- The ideal solution you propose was often used when we used glass.
  The only reason we could have started throwing our containers is because plastic is so much cheaper.
  To be fair, when we used glass, fewer product were transported long distance.
  Nowadays we can do like Germany who incentives to bring back bottles for recycling.
  Or an even better alternative would be to use glass for individuals and another method for transportation.
  Although i've seen some bio stores starting to refill plastic containers, wich isn't perfect but a nice middle ground to start changing habits.
  
  We should also switch away from liquid based detergents. My partner gets liquid dishwasher detergent, and it bugs me a bit because we're paying extra money, and buying extra plastic, just to ship a dilute version of the powder that I'd rather buy.
- I agree with all of your points, but the original picture was showing plastic pollution and you went on to compare it with carbon emissions. So when you use a phrase like "total footprint" it's difficult to interpret that any other way than we must make one problem worse to solve the other.
  I don't see why we can't have solutions that are low/zero carbon AND don't result in plastic being dumped in the ocean.
  
  Is the goal to reduce plastic, or is the goal to live as long and sustainably as possible on the only known rock that can support human life?
  But I see it as two sides of the same coin. Plastic or glass, we're not getting at the core problem, which is long distance, packaging intensive transportation of goods. Plastic is bad because it becomes trash, and eventually a pollutant. Glass may have less pollution in the product, but more pollution in the distribution.

Reusable plastic bottles or metal are great, it's the single use plastics that are really terrible.
- The banning of plastic bag sees the rise of reusable bag...being taken as single use. Multiple times higher footprint, multiple times higher cost. People will do everything for their own convenient.
  
  Except that a recent study shows that a plastic bag charge in the UK significantly changed behaviors:
  https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00266/full
  So the suggestion that people are unchangeable is plausible, but turns out to not be true.
  
  Whereas I miss the old Aldi "single use" plastic bags because I'd use them a few dozen times (not necessarily at Aldi) before they either got holes or a strap broke or something. I've still some stashed in places for when I need a decent plastic bag to hold something.

I think realizing that there is a problem is the first step to fixing it.
- I remember seeing really old papers posted here where our current climate problems were being forecasted as early as 1920.
  BP invented the carbon footprint term in an (successful) attempt to shift responsibility to the consumer in about 1990 I believe.
  We're way past realisation and spreading the word.
  This is pure ignorance we're fighting today.
- The problem was realized decades ago, and yet we've accelerated our use. It's very similar to emissions. If only we had left that thick sludge in the ground, neither of these would be an issue.
  
  I don't think it is as urgent as the media makes it seem. For the media it is all about sensational stories. Yes long term it is something to be concerned about but it isn't something you should freak out over.
  Also if it gets bad enough some company will profit from it. If there is money to be had with solutions suddenly you get the best minds working on it.

Konvinient!