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The Myth of Plastic Recycling.
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this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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If I had to choose glass or plastic, I am always choosing glass. Glass is such a good material. It is infinitely recyclable, the bottles can be reused for several years, and if they are buried they don't release microplastics.
I jump for situations where the glass is taken back for wash and reuse. Its the most sensible thing. I swear I had heard about restaurants doing this with containers but I never actually encountered one. So they had perm togo containers they took back and washed.
It depends on which aspects of the environmental impact you're looking at, as melting glass to recycle it can be much more damaging than landfilling several plastic bottles if the glass furnace is heated by fossil fuels. If glass bottles are washed and reused, they're much better than plastic, but that's rarely what happens.