Plastic producers have known for more than 30 years that recycling is not an economically or technically feasible plastic waste management solution. That has not stopped them from promoting it, according to a new report.
“The companies lied,” said Richard Wiles, president of fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), which published the report. “It’s time to hold them accountable for the damage they’ve caused.”
Too bad most of those bottles got replaced with plastic completely disregarding the impact of the environment they are causing. Not to mention that glass also comes from abundant resources like sand and we don’t risk running out of it anytime soon, the same can’t be said for oil.
Those glass bottles used to cause an awful lot of horrific deaths and injuries during handling, so from a safety perspective, there is no desire at all to return to glass. Glass bottles are also much heavier than plastic, so have a commensurate environmental impact due to the increased consumption of fossil fuels for shipping as well. Fixing the problems with plastic was a big PR win and saved companies millions in law suits and shipping costs. They won’t go back to glass. The answer is probably re-usable plastic containers purchased by the customer and refilled at stores for the same price (or more) than when sold in disposable plastic packaging. Another PR win in the offing, no doubt.
IT would be awesome if you walked into a convenience store and they just had everything on tap. You bring in your own bottle and lunch container fill em up and walk out.
I want a 100% tariff on virgin plastics
Is now a bad time to point out that not only is sand not as an abundant resource as you think, but we’re actually running short of it?
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a39880899/earth-is-running-out-of-sand/
https://theweek.com/news/science-health/960931/why-is-the-world-running-out-of-sand
Isn’t this specifically about sand for construction which needs to be coarse enough? For glass packaging you melt that stuff anyway, SiO₂ is SiO₂. Also I imagine the amount of sand needed for glass bottles would be way smaller than what construction industry uses, even less so if you recycle.
Specifically sand for construction and glass making. Not saying that glass bottles aren’t a better solution than plastic, just that the main resource needed is rarer than initially implied.
IIRC, plastic is byproduct of oil being refined into gas. As long as there are gas vehicles and engines in general, we ain’t gonna get rid of plastic. It’s so cheap because is has to be produced.
I believe it’s more a case of most plastics being produced using a by-product of the oil refining process.
So the use of plastic is subsidising the oil and gas industry.