Replacing plastic for glass and metal is a bad idea

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There are some who want to replace single use plastics with single use aluminum or glass containers, noting the greater recycablity of both materials. But I think it’s a bad idea:

  • Glass and metal, once produced last forever in the environment.
  • A glass or metal object doesn’t just rot, it also doesn’t doesn’t burn. A discarded plastic bottle may be incinerated, burned in a burn barrel or campfire or be destroyed by a wildfire
  • Plastics, especially outside of a landfill have a much shorter life than metals or glass thanks to the combustible nature of hydrocarbons
  • Metals and glass discarded can lead to cuts in children and adults when they step on the glass, are working in the woods or swimming in the creek
  • Metals and glass discarded can puncture car tires both on and off the road
  • Metals and glass discarded can get into pasture and cause painful death from hardware disease in cows and other livestock
  • Traditional deposit for recycling programs do increase recycling rates but still don’t eliminate litter or even ensure most of the material is recycled
  • Recycling is great but even with glass and metal which is said to be 100% recyclable, material is lost when the metals and glass are melted down for reprocessing
  • Glass and metal makes a lot more sense with true rewash and reuse programs – like milk delivered by a milk man
  • Milk in glass is colder and purer
  • As would be other beverages such as soda or beer produced and distributed in reused growlers

Old Unopened Beer Car

Tuesday morning after a good night’s sleep 😀

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I didn’t start abusing caffeine until this morning. Up early with lots of spinach and onions and a couple of eggs in a frying pan with a side of oatmeal and bananas ground up with some maple syrup.

Taking the earlier bus in this morning 🚌, I might walk over to Menands 🚶 to get my steps in. This bus is always early so I often miss it. Not riding in today 🚳 because I have a town meeting to go to with Save the Pine Bush 🌲.

Was up and reading 📖 more of the book about sustainable house 🏡 building. I think this book is fairer, it’s not caught up in all this wokeness crap that so much of the greenies are into. 💚 I don’t fear every chemical and I want things to last but are there better, proven simpler less toxic ways of doing things? Is always the most technology complex ways to do things always best? I have a lot of questions ever since I tabled for Save the Pine Bush a few years ago at the Capital Region Green Fair or whatever that was called.

One good thing about the current president is he has opened a lot of discussion about how we do things, 🌎 and how much of modern America has become about meaningless actions rather than substantive change. Recycling, electric cars and solar panels sure are trendy but do they change anything or is it just DEI program? Maybe we need more radical changes. And we should be questioning scientists even if their research and analysis is vital for good decision making. What green technologies are right for the modern homestead? 🐐