Cardboard and glass packaging used to be a lot more common. The key to reducing to use of plastic is fiddling with the economics. It's cheap for companies to use plastic as long as they don't have to worry about cleanup or recycling. As soon as you start charging them for the privilege of mass polluting our world with their cost savings, they can adapt pretty rapidly.
In the Netherlands, there are some discussions about going back to using cardboard packaging for dairy products. That was basically all there was when I grew up. Before cardboard, glass was very common for this stuff. But In recent years, a lot of plastic bottles were used for milk. But with the requirement to give people money for returning those to be recycled, that just got a lot less attractive. Plastic is only convenient if you don't have to recycle it.
Same with plastic bags. At some point those stopped being free (in most of Europe at least). And then people started pushing for paper bags. Problem solved. There are a lot less plastic bags now. I actually carry a nice foldable plastic bag made out of recycled plastic in my backpack these days. Fits behind the laptop compartment. So, I rarely need to buy paper bags.
Note that cardboard for liquid packaging often has a plastic lining, aluminum cans have plastic/epoxy lining, glass containers have plastic seals in the lids, etc.
Yep, otherwise they don't work. Cardstocks don't hold milk, sterile. Pure aluminum cans dissolve into food contents. Glass lids can't seal tight enough.
Food producers and public health authorites has food poisoning lawsuit and human safety at higher priorities than environmentalism. So they just make it all packaged up in plastics.
Doesn't mean some sort of waterproof inner wall coatings can't be made in the future, though. Maybe if we substitute PE with engineered PLA made from agri wastes and made sure to burn it, that could make sense someday.
truly this. you start deconstructing packaging only to e.g. realize they've glued LDPE into the inside of an otherwise fully recyclable item to make it look slightly better in stores for longer due to moisture.
This is true. But it's worth noting that in terms of mass, it's a lot less than regular plastic packaging as these are very thin coatings. But you are right that this is not a perfect solution. I'm guessing there might be some biodegradable alternatives though for some of these things.
At least cans are being recycled in parts of Europe now. You pay a little deposit when you buy cans of beer/soda and you get that back when you return it. I'm guessing the plastic just burns off when they melt the metal. Even regular cans without a deposit that go in the trash are being separated out probably and recycled.
In USA, I hope we can talk about:
The amount of plastic in junk mail. Maybe instead of stamps, we sell envelopes without a window.
The concentration of plastics in receipts. Maybe we replace those printers with photographable screens, and have a separate lane for people desiring print. Receipts expose you to far more plastic than more-emotionally-attentive items like shampoo.
Even with deposit schemes for recycling of plastic as well, the industry prefers plastic as it's cheaper to recycle than reuse of glass bottles. So you still need to dictate or tax plastic use extra. There are also environmental tradeoffs until renewable use for transport and industrial use are at sufficient levels.
Glass bottles weigh as much as its content. Aluminums and plastics are more like few percent.
Tripling energy expended for transport of liquids don't make sense. That's one of reasons why glass bottles are on a long phaseout.
It doesn't make sense when your energy is dirty enough. When your energy sources get clean enough you eventually reach an inflection point where glass bottles are less environmentally harmful.
Tire dusts are also a factor, for example. Plastics aren't always non-renewable either, some like PLA can be made from sugar cane wastes.
No way it's ever going to be environmentally good thing to source extra 2 gallon-water worth of energy per 1 gallons of water just to move the bottles around. Burning shredded corn meal bottles using some sort of smart home electric kiln is going to make a lot more sense.
The question will be what leaves more undestroyed plastic waste, not whether or not it is non-renewable, but if we can get to a point where using biodegradable plastics works for bottles, then that would change things significantly. Burning is insufficient, because people will keep dropping bottles outside the home; it needs to biodegrade fully without that kind of heat.
EDIT: There are potential hazards of bioplastics even when they are degradable. Not saying it might not become a solution, but it's not yet clear.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230601160216.h...
If the plastic recycled properly, why is it a problem?
Is it energy/waste effective? Washing a glass bottle might be more expensive (due to unpriced negative externalities) but still be better for the environment or human health. (I genuinely have no idea, to be clear.)
Because not all of it will be.
> But with the requirement to give people money for returning those to be recycled
Statiegeld! I really liked this scheme there for beer bottles.
When I lived there most milk came in tetra pak though. I thought it was recyclable?