this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 68 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The two tobacco companies Altria and Philip Morris International combined made up 2% of the branded plastic litter found, both Danone and Nestlé each produced 3% of it, PepsiCo was responsible for 5% of the discarded packaging, and 11% of branded plastic waste could be traced to the Coca-Cola company.

Imagine how much plastic waste could be eliminated if Coke and Pepsi just went back to glass bottles?

[–] ForestOrca@kbin.social 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Imagine how much plastic waste could be eliminated if we just boycotted these companies.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 23 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You are going to have a much harder time convincing people to give up on their soda addiction than you are finding a way to get the soda addicts to get Coke and Pepsi to switch back to glass.

[–] ForestOrca@kbin.social 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Perhaps so, alas. And the rates of obesity and diabetes continue to rise. sigh.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That’s the thing about addiction. You keep using even though it’s really bad for you.

[–] ForestOrca@kbin.social 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I did notice Altria / Phillip Morris were also in that list. :-(

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

All those cigarette packages wrapped in plastic.

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Cans exist? I haven't bought a bottle of soda pop in god knows how long. Cans or bust.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I haven't had a drop of either in 20 years and the mess has only grown larger.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Really? That's strange. I could have sworn the fault was on individuals and not the companies producing these mountains of shit.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Well, you see, you complain about society and yet you are part of it.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago (5 children)

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).

[–] el_bhm@lemm.ee 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[–] TheEntity@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TheEntity@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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. :)

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

No 7 times is for washing. Melting and reshaping is a new bottle. But with glass bottles break and scuff

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

Glass litter? Not necessarily, but glass is essentially infinitely recyclable, unlike plastic.

[–] blackfire@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

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

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

We should also account for extra emissions due to higher weight and lower density in transportation.

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.