this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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I believe that glass is more of a solution than a problem. Compared to plastic, it is more durable, its production process has less impact on the environment and not to mention that in the case of beverages, returnable glass packaging is better in several aspects
There have been extensive studies on that topic, that showed that PET-bottles are more sustainable and environment friendly than glass bottles and have less impact on the environmdnt. Glass bottles use a lot more energy to produce and transport than PET bottles, and the oil you save by using PET instead of glass is more than enough to produce the PET you need. You also save sand, potash, limestone, soda and a ton of CO2.
If renewables would become the prime source of energy for glass production and transportation, this conclusion might change, and if the effects of microplastics and ocean pollution are considered it might change as well.
Regarding sources, there is an abundance of them in German and quite a few in English. I'll leave this one as an example.
Multi-use glass is were it's at. Producing glass is an energy intense process, the more you use it the bettet it gets. Single use glass packaging is a crime. (Same goes for plastics multi-use>single-use)
glass is theoretically more sustainable, while its production does not involve the same kind of problems as plastic it is a lot more energy intensive so without proper energy infrastructure it is trading plastic pollution for carbon emissions, also heavier contributing to transport costs. With proper infrastructure for reusing the bottles the energy impact of production can be mitigated significantly. and even without proper reusage infrastructure the options for the glass is 1. resmelted into new glass 2. landfill->glass shards quickly become essentially just sand 3. environment where it also becomes sand
so while even without proper infrastructure the pollutans are essentially just emissions if properly treated just co2 (though modern kilns can be electric arc reducing emissions just to that of the country's electricity infrastructure) and gravel. In contrast plastic has lower production emissions but the waste in environment is to put it lightly quite a bit more harmful than gravel and the effects are still not fully understood especially ones of microplastics
Glas is not used anymore because it's much heavier (= more expensive when freight is charged by weight) and breaks when you drop the palett.