I didn’t figure it would be centralized. It isn’t currently, as you noted. There’s a bottling plant for sodas a few towns away from me.
But the trip from bottling plant to store takes fuel. So do trips from recycling centers (or bottle return places) back to whatever destination they would go to.
Plastic is lighter than glass. It can be compacted more than glass too. So you can end up using less fuel to move an equivalent volume of plastic than glass. It’s like packing your trunk full of styrofoam versus full of rocks. Trucks, rail cars, they can only hold a given volume. If a trip is heavier at a given volume, it takes more fuel to get it where it’s going. Doesn’t matter if it’s going a block, a mile, or a state away, a heavier load takes more energy.
If the difference in energy used to transport glass produces more pollution than the plastic itself, that’s an issue that has to be addressed, or switching is pointless. And that’s before trying to figure out if manufacturing and recycling glass is definitely less of a problem than making and reusing/recycling plastic. I’m pretty sure it is cleaner to cycle glass than plastic. Kinda has to be.
But we’re still heavily using fossil fuels for transport. Diesel in specific. That’s a shit ton of exhaust spread across vehicles that may or may not be kept at best condition for environmental safety. Even with electric, are the tires of the trucks going to end up being an increase in pollution by carrying the heavier freight? They’re already a damn big contributor to micro plastics.
We might end off breaking even in terms of environmental impact, which means we’d have to find ways to shift that balance, or the resources spent in changing back to glass would be a waste.
It’s easy to look at glass and say that because it’s technically infinitely recyclable, that it’s going to be better than plastic. And it may well be. But it isn’t just recycling that’s the problem.
Hell, glass bottles being returned and reused comes with its own issues with water usage and waste water disposal.
I’ve never seen anything that covers all the factors in one place. It might be out there and my casual level of interest in the details of it haven’t dug it up, I dunno. But it seems like a good idea to make a solid plan before jumping into things.
As far as I understand it comes down to recycling rates: In countries like Germany where there’s mandatory deposit on one-use plastic bottles it’s a definitive win, in other places the situation isn’t as clear-cut. PET bottles can be recycled very well provided you have a clean recycling stream, which the deposit ensures.
Still, beer in plastic bottles is a travesty, it’s generally deposit glass bottles over here (some brewery-specific, many many many generic though the crates tend to be specific). Cans at least won’t spoil the beer, but are also more annoying deposit-wise as you have to take care to not crush them in the wrong way or the machine won’t be able to read the code.
Side note: Apparently our whole traditional glass recycling is cooked, too much stuff that shouldn’t be in there in there that spoils whole batches. And very difficult to educate people about it or filter things out automatically, sure, ceramics can be filtered out, but drinking glasses of the wrong type of glass messing up the whole chemistry? Forget it. The good news is that crushed glass makes excellent aggregate, I’ve even heard of some places using it to top up beaches.
I didn’t figure it would be centralized. It isn’t currently, as you noted. There’s a bottling plant for sodas a few towns away from me.
But the trip from bottling plant to store takes fuel. So do trips from recycling centers (or bottle return places) back to whatever destination they would go to.
Plastic is lighter than glass. It can be compacted more than glass too. So you can end up using less fuel to move an equivalent volume of plastic than glass. It’s like packing your trunk full of styrofoam versus full of rocks. Trucks, rail cars, they can only hold a given volume. If a trip is heavier at a given volume, it takes more fuel to get it where it’s going. Doesn’t matter if it’s going a block, a mile, or a state away, a heavier load takes more energy.
If the difference in energy used to transport glass produces more pollution than the plastic itself, that’s an issue that has to be addressed, or switching is pointless. And that’s before trying to figure out if manufacturing and recycling glass is definitely less of a problem than making and reusing/recycling plastic. I’m pretty sure it is cleaner to cycle glass than plastic. Kinda has to be.
But we’re still heavily using fossil fuels for transport. Diesel in specific. That’s a shit ton of exhaust spread across vehicles that may or may not be kept at best condition for environmental safety. Even with electric, are the tires of the trucks going to end up being an increase in pollution by carrying the heavier freight? They’re already a damn big contributor to micro plastics.
We might end off breaking even in terms of environmental impact, which means we’d have to find ways to shift that balance, or the resources spent in changing back to glass would be a waste.
It’s easy to look at glass and say that because it’s technically infinitely recyclable, that it’s going to be better than plastic. And it may well be. But it isn’t just recycling that’s the problem.
Hell, glass bottles being returned and reused comes with its own issues with water usage and waste water disposal.
I’ve never seen anything that covers all the factors in one place. It might be out there and my casual level of interest in the details of it haven’t dug it up, I dunno. But it seems like a good idea to make a solid plan before jumping into things.
As far as I understand it comes down to recycling rates: In countries like Germany where there’s mandatory deposit on one-use plastic bottles it’s a definitive win, in other places the situation isn’t as clear-cut. PET bottles can be recycled very well provided you have a clean recycling stream, which the deposit ensures.
Still, beer in plastic bottles is a travesty, it’s generally deposit glass bottles over here (some brewery-specific, many many many generic though the crates tend to be specific). Cans at least won’t spoil the beer, but are also more annoying deposit-wise as you have to take care to not crush them in the wrong way or the machine won’t be able to read the code.
Side note: Apparently our whole traditional glass recycling is cooked, too much stuff that shouldn’t be in there in there that spoils whole batches. And very difficult to educate people about it or filter things out automatically, sure, ceramics can be filtered out, but drinking glasses of the wrong type of glass messing up the whole chemistry? Forget it. The good news is that crushed glass makes excellent aggregate, I’ve even heard of some places using it to top up beaches.