Recent post about how plastic cant be recycled: [https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kyetu1/eli5_why_cant_we_recycle_plastic_in_the_same_way/](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/kyetu1/eli5_why_cant_we_recycle_plastic_in_the_same_way/)
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Glass is the ideal substitute for plastic and it’s been used a lot longer. Glass is easy to make, recyclable and biodegradable.
The reason we use plastic is that it’s cheaper.
Why should we? We already have a melt-and-reuse-able kind of material: glass.
Plus, most metals oxidize sooner or later and even sooner when in contact with water. Not to mention how expensive our water would be if it came in metal bottles.
Because plastic is cheap.
Yeah, it’s not as good for the environment, but for the company packing a product, why would they pay 20 cents per package for new metal/glass containers when they could spend 3 cents per package for plastic.
Plastics have too many useful properties. It is tough, durable, fairly inert, easily processed and light.
By contrast metal is not inert (without coatings), heavy and not as easily processed. Glass is brittle and if made thick enough, very heavy and not very easily processed.
There just aren’t many good substitutes for plastic. Glass, because of weight alone, would significantly increase transportation costs. Transportation requires energy and that still means using fossil fuels in today’s world. Processing metal into containers requires a lot chemicals too, not to mention waste/cooling water, coatings etc. Metal also requires mining, processing ores etc etc.
There aren’t any simple answers. All solutions have tradeoffs of one kind or another.
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