Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I grew up in the 1980s, and still remember when peanut butter jars were made of glass. People drank water from a tap. If a Coca-Cola machine didn't spit out a can, you'd get a glass bottle. The default bag at a grocery store (or any store) was paper, not plastic.
At some point, likely due to profit margins, everything converted to plastic, at the same time when curbside recycling became an option for most of the country and would've reduced our garbage output, which instead increased. Now, you have to go out of your way to avoid plastic products, which can mean anything from an inconvenience to a hardship depending on your situation or location.
50 years ago, everyday plastic was barely seen. Why is it now not a dirty word like GMOs, coal and high-fructose corn syrup? Will this ever change, or are we resigned to a plasticized nation of convenience, environmental impact be damned?
Plastic is highly recyclable, your grocery bag is made out of recycled plastic as are a lot of the high tech insulations in clothing to name a couple uses.
Glass was gotten rid of because of costs, both production and transportation. There are also environmental costs with glass production, the raw materials are all obtained by mining (sand, soda ash, syenite, salt cake and limestone). Also, the very companies that made glass containers were the ones which developed plastic bottles and containers. Glass is also very recyclable.
The push to get rid of glass containers for soda came from merchants who didn't want to handle the deposits and empties.
Plastic is highly recyclable, your grocery bag is made out of recycled plastic as are a lot of the high tech insulations in clothing to name a couple uses.
Even with lowered usage, glass is still recycled at a higher rate than plastics are. Over twice as many plastic bottles are used in the US each year, but they are recycled at a much lower rate, so about 2 million tons of each are currently recycled each year in the US.
Quote:
Glass was gotten rid of because of costs, both production and transportation.
Compared to plastic, glass is heavier and more fragile, and costs more to ship, yes. But glass is completely non-toxic and impermeable, so it's superior to plastic for long term storage of volatile or fragile food and drink items, like fine wine, for one example. And glass definitely has higher customer acceptance for higher priced items. So there are definite tradeoffs. And emerging glass technologies are helping reduce the disadvantages.
Quote:
There are also environmental costs with glass production, the raw materials are all obtained by mining (sand, soda ash, syenite, salt cake and limestone).
But the simple ingredients in glass are abundantly available, and virtually unlimited in nature, whereas the ingredients in plastic are derived from fossil deposits and are finite by comparison.And the glass in a beer bottle can be recycled nearly infinitely, whereas plastic is typically only recyclable once.
Part of the issue with plastic recycling, besides low consumer compliance rates, is that there are several different types of plastic, and they have to be recycled separately, and that a small amount of the wrong type, or excessive food scraps can contaminate a whole batch. Glass, on the other hand, only needs to be separated by color.
Will we ever get rid of plastic packaging? Not that I can project. But you can't rule out glass in the foreseeable future either.
I grew up in the 1980s, and still remember when peanut butter jars were made of glass. People drank water from a tap. If a Coca-Cola machine didn't spit out a can, you'd get a glass bottle.
I can remember when the big bottles were glass, they got broke a lot... I haven't looked lately but you could still get soda in my area with returnable class bottles but it's local company.
Plastics will be replaced by materials from the plant and insect world.
Well, there's little I can do about commercial use, but I find that at the household level I'm consuming less and less single-use plastic after dramatically changing my shopping habits. Although not everyone has this option, I'm very lucky to live in an area with a number of bulk grocers. I fill my own glass canning jar with peanut butter directly from the grinder. At the salad and olive bars, I fill glass jars with a variety of condiments, while others (e.g., mustard and chocolate syrup) I make at home from ingredients bought plastic-free. I fill my own flip-top glass bottles with olive oil and salad vinegars. Hemp bags replace plastic bags at the bulk bins, and I've reduced the number of produce bags I need by placing items directly into a lined wicker basket and replaced the ones I do need with reusable cotton mesh bags. Our milk is delivered in glass bottles.
On the go, I keep a bag in the car with a couple of stainless-steel containers for leftovers and everybody has a SS water bottle. I also have a few sets of bamboo utensils to avoid disposable cutlery, but we typically eat at restaurants that provide non-plastic tableware.
Personal care items can be challenging, but I've recently found a store that sells toilet paper wrapped in paper. Bar soap is also sold unwrapped at some stores. A specialty shop in a small town to the north of me sells shampoo and conditioner from liquid bulk containers, but bar shampoos, either unwrapped or in paper, are generally easier to find.
Cleaning supples are no trouble at all, because daily cleaning rarely requires more than a little Castile soap, which can be found in bulk; vinegar, which is sold in glass; and baking soda, which comes in a recyclable or compostable cardboard box. A little lemon juice from real lemons and a touch of olive oil makes a terrific furniture polish, but a swipe with a moist cloth is most often all that's necessary. I make my own laundry soap from items that are sold in paper.
Clothing is very difficult, because 100% natural fibers are hard to find, and I live in a part of the country where fleece is a way of life.
There are other things I haven't yet been able to work around -- and some that I'll never be able to excise from my life -- but everyday I find new plastic-free goods. When I don't have any options other than a plastic container, I make sure that it's recyclable in my community and dispose of it properly once it's served its purpose.
Glass was gotten rid of because of costs, both production and transportation. There are also environmental costs with glass production, the raw materials are all obtained by mining (sand, soda ash, syenite, salt cake and limestone). Also, the very companies that made glass containers were the ones which developed plastic bottles and containers. Glass is also very recyclable.
Which makes it even more distressing that such a durable item, which can be re-used indefinitely, would come to be treated as disposable. Some of the beautiful glass containers holding pantry items in my cabinet I inherited from my MIL, who received them as a newlywed in the '60s. I imagine the Le Parfait jars I've more recently acquired to store dry goods, condiments, and leftovers will be similarly long-lived.
Which makes it even more distressing that such a durable item, which can be re-used indefinitely, would come to be treated as disposable. Some of the beautiful glass containers holding pantry items in my cabinet I inherited from my MIL, who received them as a newlywed in the '60s. I imagine the Le Parfait jars I've more recently acquired to store dry goods, condiments, and leftovers will be similarly long-lived.
Think back 5 decades (or before). Glass might have been reused but the vast majority of it went to the dump in the garbage.
Areas that had glass plants (bottle making) might have had a recycling program (the one I worked for in the 1970s did) but recycling wasn't even a blip until fairly recently.
Even today, there are vast stretches of the US that don't have recycling services. Sometimes it's because of cost, sometimes logistics, sometimes other reasons.
No matter what facilities are available in the local community, I hope that we can all agree that glass is always better re-used than recycled.
The hassle of reuse is what got rid of it. Stores didn't want to have to handle empty Pepsi/Coke/7Up, etc. bottles. Beer distributors didn't want to handle empty bottles, either. So, sodas went to plastic (there were other reasons, too) and beer bottles became throwaway.
As all that was unspooling the glass container companies kept researching how to transition more products into plastic bottles (remember, they owned both types of production). I remember one guy very high in R&D telling me that high acid products like ketchup, mustard, vinegar and salad dressing could never be put in plastic. He was wrong. He also got an incredible bonus for figuring out how to do it.
So as plastic bottles became more common demand for glass bottles dropped, causing plants to close and the need for recycled glass for re-blowing to drop. It became a downward spiral.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
