I keep seeing people swap out plastic for glass without thinking about weight

I was helping my buddy pack for a camping trip last weekend and he swapped all his plastic water bottles for glass mason jars. He thought he was being eco friendly but that pack ended up weighing like 8 pounds more just from the glass. I work with materials all day and I know weight adds up fast especially when you're carrying stuff around. Glass takes more energy to produce and transport than people realize so it's not always the better choice. We did some quick math and his glass bottles would have added like 30% more fuel use on the drive out. If you're trying to cut your carbon footprint you gotta look at the whole picture not just if something is reusable. Has anyone else noticed this trend of glass everything without checking the tradeoffs?

3 comments

3 Comments

kim_mason5516d ago

Does anyone factor in the microplastics glass shedding when bottles clink together in transit?

jennybailey16d ago

Cracked a smile reading this because I literally just got done organizing my glass cabinet and now I'm panicking about all the microscopic junk we're probably inhaling. Totally guilty of not factoring it in though, mostly because my brain is already full of other dumb worries like whether my mailman judges my Amazon addiction. Honestly, between microplastics and random glass dust, I'm surprised we're all still functioning like semi-normal humans.

corap6116d ago

@kim_mason55 probably never had their glass jars shatter in a backpack five miles up a trail like mine did last summer.