Aren't plastics made from hydrocarbons? Can't we reduce its use?

[harlinchi]

With all of the plastics in my grocery cart, many of which are designed to be single-use items such as juice or soda bottles designed with extra ridges to preclude effective washing, why hasn't there been more discussion of a return to glass? From a recycling point of view as well as from a trash volume perspective, this seems to be an intelligent action we could take which also would reduce the amount of hydrocarbons required. If plastics are still to be used, could we at least make them reusable, with smooth, washable surfaces?

Easy-to-grip bottles appear to be one of the worst offenders with non-washable shapes and weird ridges.

I've never posted in this area before; I'd appreciate it if someone would inform me if I'm violating a rule with which I'm unfamiliar. Thanks!

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. There are companies that now

manufacture plastic from corn.

[harlinchi]

2. I didn't know that!

But, as the saying goes, the list of things I don't know would fill...

But still, might a reduction of plastic use help?

[napi21]

8. You have to make the container from something!

Glass has two drawbacks that I can think of. First, it's heavy and breakable, so shipping costs go up, second it takes very hot furnaces to melt the glass to make the container, and the fuel for those furnaces isn't efficient at all.

I don't see a lot of other options, especially for packaging liquids. Some businesses are esperimenting with aseptic packaging, like the box of wine with the bag inside, but I doubt that is very practical for wide spread use on all liquids.

[harlinchi]

18. Dadgummit! I really dislike when logic and reason interfere!

I didn't think as much about the manufacture of the glass needed. In an attempt to maintain my thought, how 'bout reusable glass, like those really thick Coca Cola bottles, to which we (as kids) always compared thick prescription eyeglasses? Also, might there be some additional jobs involved in the conversion to glass and in its use?

I joke about logic and reason but thanks for pointing out that concern!

[Homer Wells]

3. Thats a question that has occurred to me

also. I would definitely love to see some discussion regarding this, along with the wisdom of those who are cognizant with this portion of the petro-chemical industry. I would think that there is a massive amount of oil being used in this capacity. Good call!

:thumbsup: :toast:

:kick:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I had that thought this morning,

as I struggled to free a small item I'd bought from its almost impenetrable plastic package. Just about everything you buy comes encased in this clear plastic packaging, whether it needs to be packaged or not, and the package is always much bigger than it needs to be. And you need a SawzAll to get it open. What's wrong with a little recyclable cardboard box?

[Warpy]

5. Plastic bottles are recycled ino plastics for non food use

They're considered single use only when it comes to food uses. Those plastic bottles are recycled into new plastic products, one of which is Polartek fleece, a material those of us who live where there are real winters appreciate greatly.

My local town accepts any numbered plastic for recycling, so I recycle it all.

[Old and In the Way]

6. It may well happen someday.

But there are energy costs to a recyclable glass program. I'm sure that someone has done an analysis between the 2 containers...it would be interesting to see.

We used to have our local diary supply milk,butter, and eggs a couple of times a week. The milk was in glass bottles. Funny, 40 years later, I still remember the recyling mantra on the bottles. "They came to visit, not to stay. Return your empties every day." :-)

[napi21]

10. Ahhhh yes, the milk man! I remember that too.

We had an insulated milk box on the porch so the milk didn't freeze in the winter or get sour in the summer. If we wanted something special, we would watch for the milkman to pull up out front and go to his truck. You could buy cream, butter, eggs, Ice Cream, and chocolate milk.

I guess it was very inefficient, but I miss that.

[Gregorian]

7. Yes.

We could make them reusable. Sanitation is one issue reusing encounters.

One of the problems we have, aside from the number of users, is the cost of petroleum. It has been so low that it is negligible in comparison to the cost of melting and molding glass.

Notice that there are people who grew up during the Depression who reuse their paper towels. I know a few. But this observation brings up an interesting fact. When you reuse something like a paper towel, the company that makes them looses a sale. That's one unit they didn't sell.

Remember, it's about money. So when it costs more to make than to reuse, we'll start reusing. Until we change our system.

There are also other things to consider. Those half gallon bottles of juice are bigger and heavier than the containers of frozen concentrate. That means we're using more fuel to transport less, when we buy the half gallon containers versus the concentrate.

I have been wanting for the longest time to see a label on products that estimates the petroleum useage per unit of item. We could get a feel for which items are more and which are less petroleum hungry. It'll happen. Long after it's too late.

But most importantly, it's about educating people to think like you are thinking. I was raised this way. But it's counter to American corporate culture. We're raised to consume. The economy thrives from consumption. The planet suffers. But who cares about the planet. Now that there are 7 billion of us, the planet is making itself known.

I appreciate knowing that there are people like you who care.

[harlinchi]

19. Thanks! I was born in 1960 and I recycle paper towels!

all of what you said made sense to me. One in particular was:

Remember, it's about money. So when it costs more to make than to reuse, we'll start reusing.

[harlinchi]

29. Thanks! n/t

[benburch]

9. Glass bottles use fuel to transport and wash.

First, they are heavier than plastic, and so you can carry less per truck or freight car load.

Second, you have to transport them back to the bottling plant for washing. Yes, your empty truck usually heads back anyway, but not loaded.

Washing, which follows hand sorting and inspection, must be to a temperature that will reliably sterilize the bottle.

Following washing a second inspection and sorting is required as bottles fail from the heat of washing.

I'm betting that the extra steps involved consume more hydrocarbons than the plastic bottles do.

[harlinchi]

20. More logic! I have problems discussing this stuff with smart folk!

I always see their side of things! In my defense, however, what about disposal costs?

[benburch]

25. A trip to the landfill costs little.

The real expense comes when you try to recycle the plastic. It is well known that recycling plastic is actually more wasteful than dumping it, but the political will to recycle everything is so strong that this is done anyway. The market for the sort of inferior plastic this process creates is almost totally saturated, so the end product yields very little money when it can be sold at all.

[Hoping4Change]

11. What bugs me is the size. A bottle of over the counter sleeping

pills containing 25 tiny pills is two inches tall. Why is that? :mad:

[On the Road]

12. On Small Items,

some of the packaging is to prevent theft. Otherwise, it's to justify the price tag.

[Hoping4Change]

13. I think they need to rethink both points because these medicine bottles

at least in Toronto don't get recycled. And why do they use such heavy weight plastic? Why not use the same lightweight clear plastic prescription bottles?

[eppur_se_muova]

14. With tiny items, you have the problem of labels.

Also, there's the inventory problem. Stocking a greater number of different sizes means you have to store all those different sizes of empties. Fewer standard sizes reduces inventory cost, at the expense of some wastefulness.

I'd worry about the bigger items, and the ones that are disposed every day, not the tiny pill bottle that is used for several weeks.

[Hoping4Change]

23. What about individual rolls of Tums? They accomodate a label.

Who said any about different sizes? My point is that all medicine bottles can be reduced. In fact over 100 pills fit into one of the small bottles. Therefore get rid of large bottles and just use small bottles.

[undergroundpanther]

15. You think plastics use oil...

Growing food uses alot more!!

Today, virtually all of the productive land on this planet is being exploited by agriculture. What remains unused is too steep, too wet, too dry or lacking in soil nutrients.1

Just when agricultural output could expand no more by increasing acreage, new innovations made possible a more thorough exploitation of the acreage already available. The process of “pest” displacement and appropriation for agriculture accelerated with the industrial revolution as the mechanization of agriculture hastened the clearing and tilling of land and augmented the amount of farmland which could be tended by one person. With every increase in food production, the human population grew apace.

At present, nearly 40% of all land-based photosynthetic capability has been appropriated by human beings.2 In the United States we divert more than half of the energy captured by photosynthesis.3 We have taken over all the prime real estate on this planet. The rest of nature is forced to make due with what is left. Plainly, this is one of the major factors in species extinctions and in ecosystem stress.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

[harlinchi]

21. Real encouraging article!

Scary stuff, indeed:

Currently, there are 1.8 acres of farmland available to grow food for each U.S. citizen. By 2050, this will decrease to 0.6 acres.

Thanks for the site and the info.

[bigbrother05]

16. As usual, the Europeans are way ahead on this.

Just returned from Germany and they have an extensive recycling/returnables system. All plastic drinks bottles have a deposit and are returned to be refilled. Most, if not all, the beer bottles are return deposit ones that are reused and the packaging on all products is minimized with home recycling the norm. They even have drop off places for recycling any type of glass container sorted by color (there were at least three different spots within 3 streets of our apartment). If folks can carry a case of 20 beer bottles to/from the store on the back of a bicycle, why is it such a chore for us?

Maybe I'm just old, but returnable deposit bottles were the norm up until the mid to late 60's, even in vending machines. Think it's the result of consolidation and squeezing profits. Most companies (Coke, Pepsi, etc.) had local bottling companies that handled the returnables near where they were sold (look at the locations on the bottoms of those old Coke bottles at an antique shop).

Guess the real question is not whether it can be done, it's why isn't it being done? If you've ever had a bottled Coke, you'll never argue that a can is a better solution.

Edited to add: Given what they can be used for, IMHO hydrocarbons are too precious to be burned.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Lots of plastics are recycled. It depends a lot on where you live.

Local ordinances in many areas REQUIRE recycling of most plastics, among other things. I even read of one town where the recycling crews will make a note if they don't see your recycling bin out for collection, and if you miss two times in a row, you can face a fine. Unfortunately, in a lot of areas, recycling is minimal. But even in fairly rural areas, you may find there is a recycling center where you can drop off your plastics for recycling, as long as you don't mix unlike types together.



Be sure to sort your plastics according the numbers within the recycling symbols above. These are stamped on the bottoms of the bottles. Its doesn't matter what the symbols stand for, just that all type 1 plastic is in one bin, all type 2 another, etc. If no stamp, put it in the TRASH, it's mystery plastic. It does help to remember that soda bottles are type 1, PETE, so you don't have to keep checking.

Even if you live in a city with a good recycling program, you may not have collection bins if you live in an apartment complex. Many apartment managers complain that the recycling bins get filled with trash (which may bring a fine) and so they don't recycle. Unfortunately, this is a problem with any (semi-)public recycling bin.

I think Carnegie-Mellon U. has the smartest collection bins I've seen -- bins for paper have a lid with a narrow slot, which easily accepts flat sheets of paper, but not crumpled-up trash, cans, etc. Bins for bottles have a bottle-shaped hole in the top, there's another for cans, etc. And they put them all together with an open-top trash can so no one has the excuse of not being able to find the 'right' bin. There are lots of good programs like this in place, but many others have trouble keeping things organized--the separate cans for office paper and trash aren't marked, etc. If bins are CLEARLY AND PROMINENTLY LABELED this is probably the one most important thing to help keep the program going.

If you live near a college or university, that increases your chances of having a recycling program in the area, since many schools run their own internal recycling programs in cooperation with the municipal authority. It's not unusual for a larger school to recycle office paper, newsprint, aluminum cans, glass, and PETE bottles (soft drinks etc.). I save all my bottles and cans from home to take to school, since my apt. doesn't have recycle bins.

Oh, and the bluer the area, the better the recycling program, natch.:eyes: Interesting to note that the default color for recycling bins in many areas is BLUE, not green.

Check out this link for some folks whose primary interest is recycling: http://www.recycle.net/recycle/Plastic/

Some interesting info at http://www.plasticsresource.com/s_plasticsresource/sec.asp?TRACKID=&CID=170&DID=275 . This is an industry group, so some skepticism may be occasionally useful. They do provide this pdf file for the benefit of those setting up a local recycling program: http://www.plasticsresource.com/s_plasticsresource/view.asp?TRACKID=&CID=159&DID=705






Oh, Hell, I can't resist. Just for the nerds:

PETE = polyethylene terephthalate
HDPE = high density polyethylene
V = "vinyl" (polyvinyl chloride, PVC)
LDPE = low density polyethylene
PP = polypropylene
PS = polystyrene
Other = everything else

[harlinchi]

22. Carnegie-Mellon U always seemed like an intelligent place.

That recycling program seems to confirm it. Why can't we do that in Philly?

[NNadir]

24. The garbage truck that picks up my plastic recycling gets 2 mpg

probably.

Here's what happens after they filling the garbage truck up with plastics:

The haul them, burning diesel fuel, to a recycling center.

In the recycling center the plastics are sorted from the glass (which in Mercer County, NJ) is recycled with the plastic.

The building where this is accomplished, is heated in winter, probably, probably using natural gas.

The plastics are shredded, using probably a massive electric shredder.

The tons of plastic shreds are then hauled again burning diesel fuel to a place where they can be processed into new products. (At this point, actually some plastic is sent to a landfill when nobody's looking or thinking about it.)

Then the plastics are heated, using energy. If one is seeking to have a simple feed stock, one heats it very high temperatures (using energy) to thermally "depolymerize" it. Otherwise, if the plastics have the right color, they can be reused.

The carbon feedstock recovery rates can be negative under these circumstances, depending on where all of these processes take place.

Plastics are fixed carbon, as it happens, but they are really not as stable as people think. They do degrade, sometimes giving off powerful greenhouse gases like methane.

My guess is that plastic recycling, always a popular idea, is better in some places than in others.

If the reduction of carbon dioxide by hydrogenation were to become an industrial process, depending on the type of plastic and the rate of it's decomposition, plastic would represent an interesting mode of carbon sequestration. But the carbon economy of the situation needs to be thought out carefully. It is not always a winner.

[benburch]

26. Usually, plastic recycling is a net loss.

There is very little market for the inferior sorts of plastic that it produces.

Glass is a material there is almost no reason to recycle. The mother materials are not rare or expensive. And you save very little energy in recycling it. If you live close enough to a glass plant, then YES, it makes sense, but the transportation costs are the whole story.

But the original question was re-usable (as opposed to recycleable) glass bottles.

[dcfirefighter]

28. I bet it gets twice that

The fire trucks at work, with a bigger motor, a similar load, and a more demanding duty cycle get about 4 mpg. They start up, run hard for a mile, idle for 15 minutes, and then drive back through city traffic.

But your points are still valid.

Points to consider:
Plastic typically weighs less than comparable packaging materials.
Recycling plastic keeps it out of the woods and waterways.

[NNadir]

30. Well, I'm guessing that the difference in driving style affects...

...the garbage truck. It runs flat out very little, but stops house to house, applying the brakes continuously.

Personally, I'm not fond of our disposal/waste society. Ideally the model for human culture should be the behavior of biological systems, in which almost all matter belongs to a closed cycle - except of course where biological matter is sequestered as oil or coal, as happened in geologically historical times.

(And what, one asks, might that geologically historical matter of carbon sequestration had to do with the existence of oxygen in our atmosphere?)

I agree too, that the ultimate fate of plastic should be a part of the equation through which we examine recycling programs. There may be circumstances under which recycling - even if it is not energetically neutral - even if it is a net energetic or carbon loss - may be preferable to disposal.

Too often though, I think we substitute what sounds good for what is good. That is my only point. We need to examine all of the parameters. Surely the data is there, and surely we can evaluate things realistically.

I think the original point of this thread - to which my comments are at best peripheral - is that packaging has a cost and we don't have to do that to which we've become accustomed in the last few environmentally tragic decades.

[ArmchairMeme]

27. Corn containers

I have found these in a few soups. They are white in color and can be put in the microwave. They claim to be able to be put in landfill.

I would like to be able to purchase the containers alone to use for storage as they would seem to be more environmentally friendly to my health and I could put them the composter to be turned into soil for the garden.