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Survey finds that 60 firms are responsible for half of world’s plastic pollution
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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Is glass litter better?
We should also account for extra emissions due to higher weight and lower density in transportation. Glass is significantly heavier, and you need more of it per item for the same strength, so you'll be moving fewer total bottles per truckload.
Aluminum is also recyclable, durable, light, and cheap, though I don't know if aluminum litter is better than plastic. I assume it is since I've not heard of micro-aluminum causing environmental damage (yet).
Aluminium and glass is close to infinitely recyclable.
Better yet, glass bottles can be reused up to 7 times.
But it costs more than a returnable plastic bottle. Which obviously costs more than a sturdy as a trashbag plastic bottle.
Glass isn't easy to recycle because just a little bit of the wrong stuff can mess up a batch.
It is reusable, though, and you can shatter it and get aggregate for concrete which is getting rare these days as all the obvious places to get sand from, such as deserts, have grains that are way too round. In that case it doesn't matter if there's the occasional mug or drinking glass or window pane in the recycling, concrete doesn't care.
PET is actually excellent for recycling provided that you actually recycle it, i.e. have a deposit scheme that works. Like the German 25ct/bottle one. Provides a very clean recycling stream, the product is light and doesn't use much volume at all when shipped to the bottling plant (they're expanding the bottles on site), etc. Also, nature apparently is learning how to break up PET.
Why 7 specifically?
That's just a number based on experience. Some bottles break first time out of the factory.. others last 15 times. They are used untill they are too degraded for reuse.
Ah, so this was about melting the bottle down and making a new bottle 7 times? As opposed to washing the bottle and reusing it as it was. Makes much more sense now. :)
No 7 times is for washing. Melting and reshaping is a new bottle. But with glass bottles break and scuff
Glass litter? Not necessarily, but glass is essentially infinitely recyclable, unlike plastic.
Unfortunately the coating they put on the inside of alu cans is pretty terrible so they are slightly less good than glass in that regard
Yes.
That's more a consequence of business efforts to minimize labor costs. There's very little reason not to produce, recycle, and dispose of glass waste locally, unless you're trying to leverage cheap fossil fuel energy in order to get around the domestic wage rates.