[stx]

I wish we would use less plastic and packaging in general. Its depressing when you buy a product and it has layers and layers of packaging. When I visited a poor part of Mexico in 2000 they still had a system where you purchased a soda in a glass bottle and then returned it for a small refund from the place you purchased it. If a poor city in Mexico does this why cant we do so in the USA? Please do understand that in almost all other ways though this city in Mexico had garbage ever-where.

[svrtknst]

Glass bottles are being removed more and more in Sweden, and it would be interesting to see the microplastic waste created by recycled plastics, and the comparative energy requirements to produce and ship a glass bottle vs. a plastic bottle - Esp. plastic made from plants or sugar cane.

All soda/beer bottles and cans sold give you a small refund, and pretty much all waste is recycleable in some way. Slightly dependent on infrastructure in your vicinity, but most municipalities ought to be able to recycle food waste, cardboard, plastic, glass, and metal easily.

[wahern]

Bottles aren't a substantial source of microplastics, partly because they're easily recycled. In developed countries synthetic fibers like polyester and abrasion from tires are two of the largest contributors to environmental microplastics; there's no capturing system in place whatsoever, yet they're ubiquitous in modern life. See https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documen...