I imagine all plastics will be out of the question. I’m wondering about what ways food packaging might become regulated to upcycling in the domestic or even commercial space. Assuming energy remains a $ scarce $ commodity I don’t imagine recycling glass will be super practical as a replacement. Do we move to more unpackaged goods and bring our own containers to fill at markets? Do we start running two way logistics chains where a more durable glass container is bought and returned to market? How do we achieve a lower energy state of normal in packaging goods?
I expect they’ll move back to earlier packaging materials like glass, metal tins, and waxed paper.
Why do we need the expense of returning glass bottles for washing and reuse, when glass recycling works and is much cheaper?
Washing and reusing is much more environmentally friendly than recycling. It may be more expensive because of the current societal/legal environment but given the right incentives, it doesn’t have to be.
Glass recycling works but its far more energy intensive. The saying was Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and it was in that order for a reason.
As fireweed said, I think it is too energy intensive especially with the contamination issues.
I think it would be interesting if packaging in many areas was standardized to actually useful products, like if products came in aesthetically designed drinking glasses and dinnerware.
I think it might be more effective to ask how this is/was done in other parts of the world presently. I’ve never been outside of North America except for visiting Hawaii once. I’ve seen documentaries about foreign bazaars and know the basic history of the Roman Fora, but I don’t know how this translates to or evolves to meet the needs of Western culture presently and visa versa.
It takes around 70% more energy to melt glass into glass than to melt sand into glass.
Consider simply the energy use…
Heating up water to high preassure steam to sterilize bottles uses way less energy than it takes to melt glass, keep it at the correct temperature, reform the bottle, letting it cool slowly (to prevent cracking) and steam clean it before filling the new bottle.
If anything we will see a new focus on the “reuse” part of the “reduce, reuse, recyle” process.
There is a reson as to why the verbs in the process are ordered in that way…
The most environmentally friendly action, is to reduce our consumption of materials, if that is not possible, then we should reuse the finnished product for as long as possible, if that is not possible, then we should recycle the materials into a new and better product rather than digging up more materieal.