Carlsberg and Coca-Cola Back Pioneering Project To Make Plant-Based Bottles (theguardian.com) 152
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A biochemicals company in the Netherlands hopes to kickstart investment in a pioneering project that hopes to make plastics from plant sugars rather than fossil fuels. The plans, devised by renewable chemicals company Avantium, have already won the support of beer-maker Carlsberg, which hopes to sell its pilsner in a cardboard bottle lined with an inner layer of plant plastic. Avantium's chief executive, Tom van Aken, says he hopes to greenlight a major investment in the world-leading bioplastics plant in the Netherlands by the end of the year. The project, which remains on track despite the coronavirus lockdown, is set to reveal partnerships with other food and drink companies later in the summer.
The project has the backing of Coca-Cola and Danone, which hope to secure the future of their bottled products by tackling the environmental damage caused by plastic pollution and a reliance on fossil fuels. [...] Avantium's plant plastic is designed to be resilient enough to contain carbonate drinks. Trials have shown that the plant plastic would decompose in one year using a composter, and a few years longer if left in normal outdoor conditions. But ideally, it should be recycled, said Van Aken. The bio-refinery plans to break down sustainable plant sugars into simple chemical structures that can then be rearranged to form a new plant-based plastic -- which could appear on supermarket shelves by 2023.
The project has the backing of Coca-Cola and Danone, which hope to secure the future of their bottled products by tackling the environmental damage caused by plastic pollution and a reliance on fossil fuels. [...] Avantium's plant plastic is designed to be resilient enough to contain carbonate drinks. Trials have shown that the plant plastic would decompose in one year using a composter, and a few years longer if left in normal outdoor conditions. But ideally, it should be recycled, said Van Aken. The bio-refinery plans to break down sustainable plant sugars into simple chemical structures that can then be rearranged to form a new plant-based plastic -- which could appear on supermarket shelves by 2023.
Trees (Score:2)
Who needs them? Just use solar power to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into oil. It's called airmining.
Re:Trees (Score:5, Interesting)
Just use solar power to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into oil.
Easy there buddy. Extracting CO2 into something like methane or ethane is not cheap, not easy, and few people can actually do it. Doing that into complex molecules like what's required for oil is REALLY not cheap and is also incredibly time consuming. All the while providing maybe enough resources to make a few thousand bottles. Recycled tree fibers can happen a lot faster, in bulk, and at insanely cheaper prices than what you are suggesting. And getting raw tree resource into paper fibers... Pfft that's not even in the domain of remotely competitive on cost, time, or volume of processing power. Turning a tree into paper/carboard is just so vastly cheaper than CO2 extraction alone (much less the conversion into a usable product), we're not even talking about the same ballpark in the same galaxy here.
Additionally, creating plastics that can degrade in years rather than decades it the goal here. So the tree option is a lot more attractive while also being super cheap, a single tree provides a lot of cardboard, we have large supply chains already created, and turning trees into the products needed is well known, insanely quick, and orders of magnitude cheaper.
I get it. Turning CO2 into really neat things we can use is super cool. But we're just not at the point right now to where that will ever be cost effective compared to literally every other option. We will absolutely get there one day, but to go full Aragorn here "It is not this day!"
Always that same pointless argument. (Score:2)
Can it be done? Is it a net plus? Yes? Then do it!
Who cares if it is easy, or cheap, or efficient? That doesn't justify shitting all over and damaging our property! (This planet.)
Fuck the shareholders. Fuck their "demands". If they want money, they should get a job!
(That means something where you work for your money.)
We got plenty of sunlight.
Just scale it up as much as you want. And place it in a desert. I'll gladly invest in it. Better than a stupid college fund where 95% of it goes to profit and wasted t
Re: (Score:3)
That's a great idea.
Until the price for a bottle of coke goes up to 5 bucks because of it. Then you'll suddenly see their market share cave in because the other company over there sells them for 1.49 in a cheap plastic bottle and suddenly all the tree huggers find excuses to not buy the 5 dollar bottles.
Re: (Score:2)
Har-de-har har. Bought a bottle of Coke in a store on an Interstate rest stop, or a movie theater?
And when the government finally gets pushed to ban one-use plastic bottles, as they're moving towards with the cheap crap plastic bags in stupormarkets?
Re: (Score:2)
Define "Net Plus". To a for-profit company net plus means something very different than it does to you, I'm sure. If it costs more to produce than the market value of the end-product, it isn't a net plus, by any definition.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly this - Some 30 years ago I had a highschool chemistry teacher I asked about this. He was a retired chemical engineer, I can't recall which of the majors he had worked at any more. His response at the time was
"Give me enough input energy and I can make you any hydrocarbon from atmospheric CO2 you'd like; but you will never get nearly back out when you go to burn it as I had to put in to making it."
He was not as far as I could tell any sort of tree-hugging ex-hippie. I don't think he had any agenda
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly this - Some 30 years ago I had a highschool chemistry teacher I asked about this. He was a retired chemical engineer, I can't recall which of the majors he had worked at any more. His response at the time was
"Give me enough input energy and I can make you any hydrocarbon from atmospheric CO2 you'd like; but you will never get nearly back out when you go to burn it as I had to put in to making it."
I had a chemistry professor at university that mentioned how silly it was to recycle plastics. He thought it a waste to carry all this plastic around to get it to a recycling facility when nearly every city had an electric generation plant in which we could simply burn the plastics. I've seen informed people make an argument for this same waste disposal method for any municipal waste that could burn. Recycling paper, cardboard, and so much more is being shown to be less friendly for the environment than
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who needs them? Just use solar power to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into oil. It's called airmining.
That doesn't solve the problem of plastic bottles not being recycled and ending up in landfills, or ending up somewhere else.
People like plastic bottles because they are light and resealable. Being transparent/translucent is likely favorable too, this allows people to easily see the level of the liquid remaining. Glass is transparent/translucent, easily recyclable, with the right kind of cap it is resealable, but not all that light. Aluminum is light, recyclable, potentially resealable, but not clear eno
Re: (Score:2)
Aluminum is light, recyclable, potentially resealable, but not clear enough to see inside.
Aluminum is also a poor fit for large containers, because it easily creases when not pressurized from inside, so you need thicker containers that become really expensive. Aluminum cans also have plastic internal lining, which can sometimes defeat the whole purpose.
Re:Trees (Score:4, Insightful)
Aluminum is also a poor fit for large containers, because it easily creases when not pressurized from inside, so you need thicker containers that become really expensive.
Then use glass for the larger containers. I can remember when it was common for fruit juice to come in gallon sized glass bottles. Glass can't be all that expensive if wine can come in glass bottles and still sell for $5.
Aluminum cans also have plastic internal lining, which can sometimes defeat the whole purpose.
Then use glass bottles. Or use a lining for the cans made of something other than plastic. Perhaps a lining made of soybean wax like that used to make candles.
I'm trying real hard to understand the problem here. This doesn't look like all that hard of a problem. Coca-cola et al. are looking for an alternative to plastic bottles. It wasn't that long ago when glass was the dominate means to contain beverages. The lids were steel, which is also recyclable. So, what's the problem they are trying to solve again?
Re: (Score:2)
Coke used to come in glass bottles, many many years ago. They moved to plastic because it's cheaper. Cheaper to manufacture, and cheaper to transport - you can fit more bottles in a container, or within a fixed weight budget. Coke could switch to glass, but then they wouldn't make as much money. Or they would have to raise the price, and customers would start to drift to rival products.
Re: (Score:3)
Coke used to come in glass bottles, many many years ago.
The superior Mexican Coke (tastes better than American Coke and doesn't have HFCS) is still sold in bottles. If I need a Coke fix that's what I try to get if I can.
Re: (Score:2)
Phrasing.
Re: (Score:2)
The superior Mexican Coke (tastes better than American Coke and doesn't have HFCS) is still sold in bottles. If I need a Coke fix that's what I try to get if I can.
This. So much this. Kinda ironic that we have to turn to Mexico to actually get the true original* recipe Coke. And where I am, it's priced only slightly higher - despite being imported and using glass bottles.
* not the one with cocaine lol
Re: (Score:2)
The superior Mexican Coke (tastes better than American Coke and doesn't have HFCS) is still sold in bottles. If I need a Coke fix that's what I try to get if I can.
This. So much this. Kinda ironic that we have to turn to Mexico to actually get the true original* recipe Coke. And where I am, it's priced only slightly higher - despite being imported and using glass bottles.
* not the one with cocaine lol
At kroger right now by me the 12oz glass bottle is $1 while the 20oz plastic American bottle is $1.99. So actually currently cheaper.
Re: (Score:3)
It wasn't *that* long ago. In college, the cheapest way to buy Coke products was to buy them in the returnable 8 packs of bottles. The downside is they were heavy, and I used to use a wooden dowel so I could carry 3 packs at a time home with them.
I also don't think "cheaper to manufacture" matters as much when you're reusing the container. It'd be interesting to know what the reuse lifespan of a Coke bottle was. I think Coke bottles were more durable than their contemporary, the returnable glass beer bo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Then use glass for the larger containers. I can remember when it was common for fruit juice to come in gallon sized glass bottles. Glass can't be all that expensive if wine can come in glass bottles and still sell for $5.
Large glass containers are very heavy and brittle, so they are more expensive to transport than plastic. If all plastic bottles were banned, then we would have 2L glass Coke bottles, sure. But this is simply politically impossible, people are having outrage dementia from plastic straw bans.
Then use glass bottles. Or use a lining for the cans made of something other than plastic. Perhaps a lining made of soybean wax like that used to make candles.
There are actually companies working right now on bioplastics for this purpose. But it's not at all straightforward.
Re: (Score:2)
"Glass can't be all that expensive if wine can come in glass bottles and still sell for $5."
We have enough industry to use more resources than the planet can support.
The issue isn't the cost, the issue is not pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere.
Re: (Score:3)
It took a while to get Plastic Bottles to be popular over glass. The biggest hurtle was making the plastic to be less of an insulator and allow the cold drink to sweat on the bottle. Because before that no one wanted to get soda in a plastic bottle, because they thought they were handed a warm soda.
Transparency I don't feel is a big issue, just as long as there is some nice marketing and branding around it. They are some soft drink sold in aluminum bottles, and others have wrapping completely covering the
Re: (Score:2)
If only there was a technology that could do that, something that could organically extract CO2 from the air, store it in an organic medium and then over a period of time decompose down into carbon chains that we could then extract and use as a fuel. That would be amazing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Trees Who needs them? Just use solar power to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turn it into oil. It's called airmining.
This is actually a pretty good plan. the best part is that airmining systems literally grow on tees so they're very easy to make.
Re: (Score:2)
Plants are solar powered and they create material out of carbon dioxide too. We can probably use the Solar Power generated for more practical activities.
Let us redefine progress to mean Just because you can do a thing, it doesn't mean you must do that thing.
Which Coca-Cola to believe. (Score:3)
This comes right on the heels of their spokesperson telling the folks at Davos that their customers still want plastic bottles. We will see if they're heart is really in becoming part of the solution. https://www.bbc.com/news/busin... [bbc.com]
Re: (Score:2)
> This comes right on the heels of their spokesperson telling the folks at Davos that their customers still want plastic bottles.
Yes... as your linked article says - in comparison to aluminum and glass bottles. Plant bottles will still look and feel like plastic bottles to the end consumer. That's the point. It is plastic. Bioplastic.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Which Coca-Cola to believe. (Score:2)
It depends.
E.g. in Germany, people who shop with cars buy glass, for sanity and health reasons. People who are just on the go in a city, buy plastic, because glass is heavy. That is about the only reason.
And even then, people generally refuse to buy beer on plastic bottles. It's all glass for class, or GTFO. That includes all mix drinks, wine, and even those fancy hipster lemonades and mate tea etc.
Coca-Cola recently started selling glass bottles up to 1 liter again for this very reason.
But it seems they
Cardboard, huh (Score:2)
Reminds me of the paper bottles they use in David Brin's "The Uplift War" . Instead, they should go completely with edible plant matter, then you could just eat the bottle afterwards.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't 'edible plant matter' be subject to rotting? The bottle would have a shorter shelf-life than the product within it?
Probably 99%+ of soda is sold/consumed within a couple of weeks.
Maybe they could sell "long life" bottles to the curmudgeons (at slightly higher price...)
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't 'edible plant matter' be subject to rotting?
They say it takes 5 years for a bottle to decompose, and likely more if it's not in a moist environment. So shelf life is likely not an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You never hear of a Twinkie?
If a product is sufficiently waterproof to hold beverages, it probably wouldn't rot too quickly.
If it is edible, it may break down in high acids, and enzymes. So I probably wouldn't bury it in soil, or in a bath of hydrochloric acid.
Re: (Score:2)
Glass and aluminum (Score:5, Interesting)
Glass and aluminum are very easily recycled aren't they?
Re: (Score:2)
You get broken glass just about everywhere.
Sure that may be more of a problem with humans but a plastic-lined cardboard box is less likely to have that problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Interestingly, at our local reservoir, they banned the use of glass bottles on boats. Because jackasses would toss them overboard, they would eventually get pushed along by the river current to the spillway where they collected above the dam. Glass is functionally inert, but it takes a long, long time for glass to erode.
I'm all for changing to environmentally friendly packaging, but we as a species also need to do something about litterers. Mandatory whipping or caning until everybody learns that tossing tr
Re: (Score:2)
And even without, who but drunk partygoers breaks glass in public?
Isn't that enough? I do have some friends, in Germany actually, who had their dog cut itself so badly on glass in the nearby woods it needed vet treatment. Probably drunk teenagers but it ruined the area for them. The beach outside our vacation home, yeah somebody had a party there when I was a kid. I don't know if the bottles were smashed or just abandoned or a storm took them but I got a nasty cut under my foot and had to wear shoes long after that. Plus kids and accidents happen to other people too, on n
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Glass and aluminum (Score:2)
Get two smaller ones then.
0.75l glass are the standard in Germany since probably a century or something.
(And there is 0.5 and 0.25 too.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Aluminum recycles easily, but the inside is coated with plastic [youtu.be] to prevent the drink from corroding the aluminum. So they're only slightly better than plastic bottles. When you recycle an aluminum can, the plastic is burned
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Glass can shatter when dropped.
So this means companies that ship glass, need to carry extra weight (meaning more fuel per bottle shipped), and their trucks will need to be made to handle the products more gently.
Re: (Score:2)
It would be useful if biodegradable bottles could be manufactured but they would have serious food safety standards to meet. Not much go
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Glass and aluminum (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely. This is nonsense on trying to make a better plastic bottle. If the goal is to do away with the plastic bottle then use glass or aluminum. If there's a problem with either of those then there's plenty of other options. Drinks used to come in steel cans, we can do that again. Perhaps we could use copper/brass/bronze based containers.
This is just stupid to try to come up with some kind of new biodegradable plastic. This is nothing but virtue signalling since there's already perfectly viable options.
~blindseer
In 1989, to complete a degree in technical writing, I wrote a paper about municipal waste management and in regard to the three Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle + repurpose)...two factoids
1. During WWII, glass was recycled 20 times according to one source.
2. A recycled aluminum can requires 95% less energy than smelting it from bauxite ore.
The second fact was interesting to me in terms of consumer models and externalities. When it comes to policy and enterprise, efficiency can kill as many jobs as it creates...the objectives are designed over an arc of time.
Posters who repeatedly come to topics with little to declare other than an article is "virtue-signaling" pretend to assess an author and editor's motives while concurrently kicking up a lot of dust to obscure meaningful discussion. Your post uses a looking-glass rhetoric of asserting there is a political agenda to information while engaging in a political agenda-- an accusation that begs the question.
Packaging is chosen for many reasons, but your suggestion that materials more scarce than glass or aluminum would be hypothetically "viable" is either hyperbole or disingenuous noise.
I'm going to make an original post to this topic and all I can hope is that participation of the kind you demonstrate in this thread will remain clear of it-- I'm attempting to be preemptive because there are so many posts like your own that inject political language for which none was present.
Re: (Score:2)
Posters who repeatedly come to topics with little to declare other than an article is "virtue-signaling" pretend to assess an author and editor's motives while concurrently kicking up a lot of dust to obscure meaningful discussion.
I'm not commenting on the author or editor virtue signalling, I'm commenting on Coca-Cola virtue signalling. There is no need for Coca-Cola to make a new material to replace plastic in bottles, they can simply sell their products in only aluminum and glass containers. They won't do this though because consumers will often prefer plastic containers, and therefore will simply buy competitor's version of sugar water.
Packaging is chosen for many reasons, but your suggestion that materials more scarce than glass or aluminum would be hypothetically "viable" is either hyperbole or disingenuous noise.
What's more scarce than a material that does not yet exist? Coca-Cola is not satisfied with
Re: (Score:3)
You can't virtue signal with them.
Precisely. This is nonsense on trying to make a better plastic bottle.
Consumers prefer plastic bottles. Logic would dictate producing a friendlier plastic, not made from petrochemicals.
Re: (Score:2)
Consumers prefer plastic bottles.
I guess I'm not a consumer, then.
Re: (Score:2)
Consumers prefer plastic bottles.
I guess I'm not a consumer, then.
ConsumerS, not "every single consumer in the entire world and throughout all time and space". Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the concept of aggregates and statistics? Please allow me to acquaint you with the novel (to you) concept that people making decisions have to make the best decision they can even in the absence of absolute agreement from 100.00000000% of all of the people impacted by the decision.
Specifically in the context of this article, beverages are available in glass bottles as well as metal c
Re: (Score:2)
Not just consumers, vendors too. Plastic bottles are less likely to break and lighter weight, and thus easier to transport and handle.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"This is nothing but virtue signalling since there's already perfectly viable options." aaah.. so progress stops here does it? The "virtue signalling" argument is used a
Re: (Score:2)
Gourds, bamboo... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How does this screw with other plastics? (Score:5, Interesting)
I work at a company which specifically collects and recycles used beverage containers [bottledropcenters.com]. I'd really love to know what happens when one of these bottles is flaked and run through a plastic recycling mill. By the sounds of it, it does *not* break down into polymers which play well with non-plant-based stuff, so it'd basically act like a contaminate. Yay for the option, but sounds like methods need to be develop to separate out this material from the prevalent common PET.
Re: (Score:2)
It might be a case of everyone switching over and some short term pain is the best option, or rather the last bad option.
Re: (Score:2)
Recyclables are already sorted, there are already multiple different plastics used in bottles. Problem solved
Re: (Score:2)
Really? You trust millions of end customers to accurately separate multiple different types of plastic? And yeah, some populations can do that okay-ish, but that's one huge externality your recycling company is punting on to your "customers".
Pumpkin Leather (Score:2)
Much speculation is made, some valid, other tin-foilish, about Tesla's lab late in his life, but what advances Carver made were, and are, obscured and relegated to rumor are as compelling and potentially revolutionary.
Not so v
Time bombs. (Score:3)
Avantium's plant plastic is designed to be resilient enough to contain carbonate drinks. Trials have shown that the plant plastic would decompose in one year using a composter, and a few years longer if left in normal outdoor conditions.
So you have a pressurized vessel strong enough to hold the pressure in but which, if left alone perhaps with a trace of mositure, rots and decomposes.
So you'd better be sure to drink that soda before the bottle degrades enough that it explodes (and perhaps takes out the rest of the case, which would be getting weak about that time.) Foo-BAM!
Or perhaps the bottles can be designed with a weak spot that goes first. Then it can spray the contents all over the pantry a little earlier, rather than blasting them around when it ruptures.
Somehow this doesn't seem all that practical.
Re: (Score:3)
The repair and painting works would make probably more damage to the environment than some light durable plastic bottles.
Re:Time bombs. (Score:4, Informative)
So you'd better be sure to drink that soda before the bottle degrades enough that it explodes (and perhaps takes out the rest of the case, which would be getting weak about that time.) Foo-BAM!
Soda doesn't have a long shelf life. After about 9 months in a plastic bottle it goes flat because the bottles aren't completely impermeable to gas. In fact the pressure often goes negative and the bottle collapses after long enough because the bottles are more permeable to CO2 than O2 or N2, and diffusion acts to equalise the partial pressures.
I'm sure this has nothing to do (Score:2)
with the price of chemicals skyrocketing in the past few months showing how sensitive the oil based supply chain is to global disruption.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right! This has nothing to do with the price of chemicals skyrocketing in the past few months. Coca-Cola and Danone have partnered with Avantium on this project since at least 2013. [avantium.com] It's old news.
Oh, and...um, the price of chemicals hasn't "skyrocketed" in the last few months, unless you're talking about the stuff used to make cleaners/sanitizers.
Sound like PLA to me (Score:2)
Animals and Pests. (Score:2)
And no one wants an old can of soda forgotten on the back of a shelf degrading within a year and leaking all over everything.
Just go back to glass, if it weighs too much then you aren't healthy - workout some.
The end of cellaring beer (Score:3)
I'll just age this for 5 years...oh shit why is there a puddle in my basement?
In all seriousness though, I wouldn't care if my beer was in paper as long as it was oxygen and light proof. That's why the can is superior to the bottle.
and how do we get those plants? (Score:2)
Marketing vs REAL solutions.
Re: (Score:2)
So, the real problem with plastics is that ppl, actually nations. are not handling it well. In America, we are putting these in landfills, and/or recycling. In Asia, esp. Vietnam and CHina, they dump anywhere and everywhere, but esp. in the oceans. Chinese plastic is not only the most plastic, but it is the most in almost ALL oceans
Not for beer! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you know the expression: "One man's joy is another man's visit to the emergency room."
How about cellulose acetate? (Score:2)
Glass (Score:3)
Same thing can happen with pop bottles, charge a deposit and return. Pop in glass tastes better anyway. I remember buying pop in glass bottles into the 1980's.
Get off my lawn!
Re: (Score:2)
Many years ago we used to wash the glass. And that uses a fair amount of fresh water but it is pretty cheap on energy.
Now days, most of the glass gets broken and remelted. That uses a lot of energy. It takes significantly less energy to blow plastic than than does to mold glass.
Re:Glass (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
because it takes a lot of energy to recycle glass.
and a lot of energy to transport it.
and its not infinitely recyclable.
Re:Glass (Score:4, Insightful)
because it takes a lot of energy to recycle glass.
Then wash and reuse them. Wasn't that common practice in the days of milk in glass bottles?
and a lot of energy to transport it.
Yeah, there's not mush we can do about that. Perhaps we could use aluminum?
and its not infinitely recyclable.
It's close enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Cuz you have to collect them. And they have to be the right shape - cuz anything NOT in a Coke "contour" bottle won't fly. And the it not bedinged or damaged. And then wash and sanitize them.
Its HARD, and has a long, complex supply chain.
BUT - at least in Oregon, USA - someone is trying to make it better. The company which does most of the glass beverage container recycling is selling bottles to distributors specially designed to be refilled & reused [bottledropcenters.com].
Note: I work for OBRC / BottleDrop.
Re: (Score:3)
Its HARD, and has a long, complex supply chain
When you say "long, complex supply chain" all I hear is "lots of jobs." That's the part that a huge multinational corporation loves to "synergize" by moving to plastic.
The old glass soda bottles were incredibly durable. And held less soda. As it turns out, less sugar water in your diet is better.
Re: (Score:2)
No it doesn't. (Score:2)
They are not broken and molten, you know? They are almos always washed.
And not more than plastic anywayy,.even if you melt them down.
What does it matter anyway, even if it costs $0.10 to melt it after every 100 re-uses. Apart from solar energy being free. Just ship them to a desert, place them in the center of a lot of mirrors. Pour new bottle. Done.
Oh, and if you take $1 for $0.05 worth of ingredients, don't fuckin tell me "it's expensive"! You greedy pig.
Re: (Score:2)
Ship a bottle made of glass for recycling to a desert where there's lots of sand...
You might want to rethink that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As stated above...
https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
You can't virtue signal with glass bottles.
Re: (Score:2)
So we can... send it to our local recycler and _pray_ they can separate these for further processing, or just throw it out (ideally in some sort of landfill with "normal outdoor conditions") and call it a win?
Yes it's a huge win. Comes from plants not oil stocks and it's biodegradable so even if it's not disposed of properly it doesn't become a persistent pollutant.
It seems to me the most realistic use-case for this is that they _intend_ it to be tossed out in the woods, and are trying to create a produc
Re: (Score:2)