Recycle: Glass vs Plastic
July 17, 2009 at 10:18 pm 7 comments
Question. Is it better to buy a smaller glass container or a larger plastic container?
Answer? I don’t bloody know! I can’t decide. Help!
We buy Bertolli olive oil (extra virgin, fruity taste) and we go through it quite quickly. The Elves like a good EVOO, yes we do. Bertolli sells it in either a 1 litre glass bottle, or a 2 litre plastic bottle. So far we’ve been buying the glass one, but which one is more environmentally friendly?
We are currently buying the 1 litre glass bottle of Bertolli EVOO.
Glass is better for the environment, I think – it’s made of sand, silica and limestone and while it doesn’t biodegrade easily, it can be recycled over and over again, forever. I’ve also seen pieces of glass at the beach, all smooth and no longer resembling whatever they originally were. It takes way less energy to produce (especially if it’s recycled) and if it gets dumped, you know it’s not going to leach toxins or hurt an animal (unless it’s broken and they get cut). The eco-downside is that because it’s heavier, it takes more energy to ship, and it can break more easily during shipping, causing greater waste. Apparently it takes more energy to recycle than plastic too, but I think maybe that’s not considering fancy glass recycling plants like the Visy plant in Melbourne.
Plastic is made from petrochemicals and doesn’t biodegrade. It’s made of all kinds of nasty toxic stuff and hangs around killing animals for ages. Production almost always includes nurdles as a by-product, and let’s not even talk about the floating plastic continent of doom. It’s lighter and more durable and consumes less energy when shipping though.
I’m inclined to go for glass, but if we buy glass, it comes in a smaller package, which means more packaging to get the same amount of oil. I think they sell it in a 5 litre tin too, but our tiny house is not made for storing significant bulk food purchases, as much as I like the idea, so that won’t work for us.
Which one should we buy?
Entry filed under: Recycle. Tags: broken items, food packaging, glass, plastic, pollution, recycling, transport.
1.
jlow | July 19, 2009 at 8:07 am
sand, silica and limestone are all raw products that have to get mined and processed before it gets made into glass. maybe you should calculate the impact of the haul trucks zipping around, chewing up all that gasoline, the blasting that occurs to even get the product out of the ground, the excavators and wheel loaders putting it into the haul truck, the water and electricity used in the processing plants that wash and crush and screen the raw products, the trucks that drive the processed products to the factories before it even starts the process of being made into itty bitty glass bottles. lol.
2.
ecolesbovego | July 20, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Can’t half tell what industry you work in lol!
I agree that glass isn’t perfect either, and that kinda sucks, cos I can’t really think of alternatives that are better. Metals also need to be mined, often more intensively. Plastic is made of petrochemicals and getting oil out of the earth isn’t great either.
At least glass can be recycled indefinitely, whereas you can only recycle plastic so many times. Theoretically, you could just keep reusing glass forever and ever, unless you needed more than you already have.
So ultimately, from my understanding, nothing is perfect but glass is the lesser of a number of evils. That’s just my very uninformed opinion though. Do you know more about the impact of mining metal and oil? Perhaps you’ll change my mind!
3.
Doug | July 23, 2009 at 7:21 am
I would have voted for glass in the past, but I’ve learned that it takes a much larger amount of energy to recycle glass than plastic, or so I’ve been told. I recycle all my plastic through the city curbside pick up program, but I’ve been stockpiling my glass wine and other bottles and jars to recycle them into some sort of art sculpture that can be lit from within at night (flourescent bulbs of course). I’ve also looked for a cheap cement mixer so I can break the colored ones and tumble them to smooth the sharp edges, then use it all as decorative mulch in my garden.
4.
ecolesbovego | July 24, 2009 at 12:40 am
I have also heard that glass takes more energy to recycle, but the fact that you can recycle it over and over ad infinitum I think sways me. Plastic can only be recycled a certain number of times before it gets dumped. Of course there is the mining as well – I think (although I’m not sure) that sand/silica/limestone mining would be more sustainable than petrochemical mining.
That’s a cool idea for reusing the glass too, Doug – will it work as mulch since it won’t break down? Do you think it will conduct heat too much, or start any fires? I would love to see a picture, I bet it would be really pretty!
5.
Doug | July 24, 2009 at 1:14 am
I haven’t found a cheap cement mixer yet to do the tumbling, but I’ve seen colored glass used as a decorative mulch in Garden Design magazine photos. No it doesn’t break down, so it becomes a permanent design element in the garden. It wouldn’t be used to mulch the plants, but to add accents like a river of color. I just now googled the words tumbled glass mulch and then clicked on images and it brought up several interesting examples. Try it and you can see what I have in mind. I also mentioned making a glass sculpture out of jars and bottles, but I just haven’t had time to tackle it yet. I like to use recycled objects as garden art. I talk about it and show some examples in my website http://www.yanzum.com
Doug
6.
ecolesbovego | July 24, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Using glass like that as a design element is something I hadn’t thought of before, it looks really pretty (I especially like the one that looks like a river/pathway). Is there any environmental impact to scattering glass around like that, considering it doesn’t degrade for ages and ages?
A sculpture sounds cool. We had the Big Stubby near where I grew up that was made of glass bottles!
http://www.bigthings.com.au/s.htm
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10159101
7.
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