eli5 Why are glass bottles not used more for soft drinks if plastic is such a nightmare for the planet?
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I’ve just started getting my milk delivered in glass bottles. This was a conscious decision. The empties are collected by the dairy, full bottles left in their place; empties go through automated sterilisation and washing process and then refilled for next delivery rota. In my younger days I worked as a milk delivery boy, seem to have gone the full circle.
When you think about the cost of a highly refined commodity remember the cost tends to be proportional to the energy requirements for manufacturing it. They have been so optimized that the cost is close to the cost of the oil used to mine, refine, melt, form, and ship the material.
So by that logic switching to glass might not be better for the environment. Yes we would get less environmental plastic pollution but we would get more co2 and methane.
This is just a heuristic though to start your reasoning with. The details matter. I’m just saying when you hear claims like this about something being better for the environment BUT it costs more you should immediately ask “does it cost more because it uses a lot more oil to make” if so then is it actually better for the environment. The answer to that might be no. But it might be yes.
Glass bottles are making a comeback btw. Despite the disadvantages pointed out here, people seem to readily pay more for the experience of drinking out of classic glass bottles.
If you were alive back before the transition to plastic bottles, you would notice that every public space in America was covered with broken glass. Every park, every beach, broken glass everywhere. All that “sea glass” at the beach is just 50-100 year old broken beer bottles. Think about all the times you’ve seen a plastic bottle on the side of the road, 50 years ago that was a broken glass bottle.
glass is much heavier and more space consuming than plastic, thus increasing packaging and transportation costs (increased fossil fuel use). also glass is more prone to breakage, thus also increasing transportation costs.
My mate owns a dairy in england. Mainly distributing milk.
He did an interview with a national newspaper about the surge in people wanting to go back to getting their milk in glass bottles, thus avoiding plastic.
One night in the pub he told me it was great for his business but his glass bottles were probably worse for the environment than his plastic ones.
Plastic weighs less and is as,or more, durable. So it’s cheaper to ship. The answer is always money.
The glass pollution at my local lake is so bad I would be happy if they just outright banned glass bottles. Aluminium cans would be far better and easier to recycle.
I work in the industry, and at our plant, the cheapest overall option is cans, second cheapest is PET bottles, and on a very distant third, glass. I don’t expect other companies to have reached significantly different conclusions than we have.
Cans cost more per liter of beverage than plastic bottles, but can be stacked denser than plastic bottles, which means more drink per truck, more drink per forklift, and of course takes up less storage space in our warehouses. This makes them come out on top overall vs plastic. Plastic is of course more sturdy, and many customers like resealable containers.
Glass is less sturdy than plastic, holds way less beverage per pallet, and weighs significantly more. This means we would need to drive more trucks, and that each truck would be more heavily loaded.
These factors lead to much higher emissions, which are also bad for the environment, and this is before we even start including the energy costs of producing glass bottles. Even if you reuse them , which often isn’t the case, a glass bottle would need to be refilled dozens of times before it saves energy vs making ultra cheap alu cans or pet bottles. If the glass bottle gets too worn out, chipped, or smashed to bits in a forklift accident (this happens pretty often) before its been reused that many times, it’s a net loss
Everything other people have said is absolutely right (consumers would rather buy it in a plastic bottle). But there is a widespread misconception that glass bottles are always better for the environment.
Since glass recycling is basically melting the glass and making a new bottle, this takes quite an amount of energy.
If the glass bottles are transported far distances, they need much more gasoline, since they are heavier than plastic. So if you don’t have a regional bottling plant as well as a regional glass recycling plant, plastic bottles are “less worse” than glass bottles.
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