> Glass jars aren't just washed and reused, they have to be melted down to be reused at all.
Glass, unlike plastic, is impermeable. In Germany, the pfand system incentivizes bottle return by around $.10 to $.50 per glass bottle; and they're washed & sterilized, then re-used.
This does work as a subsidy for poor people with time on their hands; pfand bottles are often left next to outdoor trash cans instead of in them, and they usually disappear very quickly.
> Glass, unlike plastic, is impermeable. In Germany, the pfand system incentivizes bottle return by around $.10 to $.50 per glass bottle; and they're washed & sterilized, then re-used.
Glass jars tend to have small fractures, especially around where the lid/cap are, making them unfit for reuse. Inspection is tedious and manpower-intensive. Melted down and put back into the blow molds, if reused at all. Industry works differently than the political perception of it. You might want them to be reused, but it's just not the way the world works.
Instead of jacking off over political videos, go watch some of the non-political ones of the "how it's made" variety once in awhile.
I live in Germany and I see glass bottles that have been obviously re-used--e.g., beer from one brewery in glass embossed with the slightly-raised lettering of another brewery.
I couldn't tell you whether it's economically efficient or energy-efficient to do things that way, when you consider all the direct and indirect inputs; any more than I could tell you how to make a pencil. But I can tell you that Germany does it.
Glass, unlike plastic, is impermeable. In Germany, the pfand system incentivizes bottle return by around $.10 to $.50 per glass bottle; and they're washed & sterilized, then re-used.
This does work as a subsidy for poor people with time on their hands; pfand bottles are often left next to outdoor trash cans instead of in them, and they usually disappear very quickly.