So what is the answer?
Maybe push for laws - the purchase of a plastic bottle include 25 cents surcharge on the bottle.
Then you can toss the bottle in the street, and the homeless can scavenge for bottles and make a decent wage for a day’s work - and still there’s enough left over to deal with the plastic.
So what is the answer?
Glass, and you get a deposit for returning the glass, like how it was for most of the 20th century.
Very recyclable… and Coke clearly doesn’t have an issue since they sell their own products in glass bottles anyway. Not just imported Mexican Coca-Cola. They sell it in glass bottles as a novelty in the U.S.
Soda from a glass bottle was so much better than plastic. It’s off tasting in plastic bottles and it warms up too quick.
Companies use plastic because it’s cheap.
Tax plastic until glass and aluminum cans are a better deal.
Aluminum isn’t really a great option either. Modern cans have to be lined with a coating of plastic to avoid corrosion. Sure it’s a super thin coating, but it’s plastic all the same (and can contain some pretty nasty largely unregulated chemicals like PFAS)
I’m here for glass, though, and maybe we’ll find a good replacement for the lining in cans if plastic bottles aren’t allowed.
The problem with glass is that it’s heavy and fragile. That means more weight, less product per volume, and more loss. All of that means less efficiency, meaning more trucks on the road and more emissions.
Alternatively, we do away with non-alcoholic pre-mixed beverages entirely, which are mostly water, replacing them with something like fountain machines or even powder mix. Like a kurig or soda stream but instead of using single-serve containers, it uses a refillable glass tube (or something) of concentrate and meters it out as needed, and uses refillable co2 containers, for example.
Another option is to do on-site, on-demand filling, like what breweries do with glass growlers. You bring a glass or stainless steel gallon or half gallon jug, they do a rinse with sanitizing water, fill it up, and send you on your way. We could even bring back swing top bottles for individual servings (I have like 50 of those and they are amazing for beer and kombucha), and just use local or on-site bottling.
There are lots of options that don’t involve single-use plastics, and also don’t involve tons of extra shipping costs. We just have to incentivize making that switch at the company/producer level, rather than the consumer level. Like reusable bags. If the polluting option isn’t an option, people will adjust.
Maybe we just get rid of bottles, and only have fountains. You want to take it with you? Bring a reusable bottle.
We do this in Ireland
We could all get Drinkmates and then purchase the sugar syrup of our choice in glass jars.
