Plastic vs. Glass (in which I seem to digress but then tie it up neatly in the end)

A 2001 article by the Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board in India.

Hazardous Hues: Plastic vs Glass

One tradeoff I wonder about is the increased weight of glass vs. plastic. If you went back to using glass containers instead of plastic, how much additional fuel would you have to burn to ship all that extra weight (including reshipping lost inventory from increased breakage)? Would that be better or worse in terms of greenhouse gas production? According to this brochure by the Glass Packaging Institute (of course there's a Glass Packaging Institute!),

A Danish Ministry of the Environment(the Danish government’s equivalent of the U.S. EPA) study conducted in 2000, and revised in 2001, concluded that on a kilogram for kilogram basis, glass is the most environmentally friendly package across the board when considering greenhouse effects, acidification and eutrification.

However, I don't know if that takes into account greenhouse gasses created by shipping, or if that is only looking at production processes. I can't find the 2000 study online. Ah well.

As an aside, let me say that eutrification is a very cool word! Apparently eutrification is when there's too much organic stuff in the water, from fertilizer runoff and the like. That can cause algae blooms, which are bad (algae and algae-eaters feel free to disagree!)

One thing that causes eutrification: dog poo! One solution to dog poo getting into the water: pick it up and put it in a little plastic baggie!

From some random teacher's resource:

E coli bacteria is a form of pollution that affects the bays around Australian cities. One big reason for E coli pollution is cat and dog poo, which ends up on the streets and footpaths and gets washed down the drains after rain, and eventually finds its way into our creeks, rivers and oceans. Many people do not carry a little plastic bag with them when they take the dog for a walk. Plastic is good for something after all!

So, see? Back we come to plastics, and our now familliar theme of inescapable tradeoffs. After all, who wants to carry around dog poo in a glass jar? Not me, that's who not.