Further - I don't understand why we don't just have mandated bottle/jar form factors.
We broke the fucking loop by claiming that people could just throw plastic containers away and "somewhere, somehow (over the rainbow!!!) people will recycle them into new goods". That story is bullshit - even for most plastics that can actually be recycled.
I want legislation that lays out a set of standardized form factors that are as re-usable as possible (NOT RECYCLABLE - Literally washable and reusable), and if companies use those - great! No extra taxes for you.
Want to use your own custom packaging? Fine, but you pay for the whole fucking product lifecycle up front, before the customer ever touches it: Collection, Cleaning, Recycling/Disposal, Reprocessing, Redistribution. The EU estimates those costs for plastic at about 800 EUR ($950) a ton.
Denmark used to have a system for reusing glass beer bottles. There was one standardized size that all the breweries used, and they were reused.
At some point in the last decade or so, the system was changed so now the glass gets recycled instead. The bottles are thinner now (lighter to transport, less material used) and allegedly it works out to less impact, based on some model.
(Though I've also heard it was mainly because breweries wanted to be free to decide the look of their bottles, for branding reasons, and something about EU harmonization to make it possible to sell imported beers.)
>I want legislation that lays out a set of standardized form factors that are as re-usable as possible (NOT RECYCLABLE - Literally washable and reusable), and if companies use those - great! No extra taxes for you.
Is that seriously the impediment to plastic container reusability, that they're not standardized? People don't reuse plastic containers because there aren't that many uses for them around the house.
My wife and I went through a period of trying to maximally reuse otherwise disposable packaging we had around the house, and we quickly discovered two facts:
1. There's surprisingly many things you can use disposable containers for around the house.
2. Even if you go out of your way to find more uses for the waste, in a month or two you'll just run out of applications.
The problem of consumer waste is that it's a continuous flow of trash. At-home reuse is not a sink, it's a buffer - it fills up quickly, so it doesn't alter the overall dynamic of the system.
Any waste reuse scheme needs to recirculate it on the market - new products need to be put in old packaging.
I read @horsawlarway's comment as "reusable for the original use" as in how the US used to have glass soda (soft drink) bottles that were collected at stores, returned to the bottler, who would wash them out, refill them with new soda, and put them back out on store shelves or in vending machines.
The return of the empty bottles to the stores was incentivized via a ten cent per bottle "deposit" one made upon purchase, which one received back when one returned the bottle to a store that collected them. This was the mid 1970's as well, so that ten cent deposit would be about 45 cents per bottle today.
I wouldn't be surprised if the environmental impact of glass bottle maintenance, storage, replenishment-production, ends up being higher than the impact of single-use plastic bottles
Bottle deposits are still in force around the world. For instance in parts of the EU. They provide the most benefit where they support re-use (glass bottles) but are also used for recyclable PET bottles.
Glass bottles cost a lot to transport, occupy a lot of space, must be washed and sterilised. PET bottles are crushed in the machine that you return them to so they occupy less space and are much lighter. Here in Norway where most drinks containers have a deposit we have almost completely switched to PET bottles and aluminium cans for beer and soft drinks on the grounds that recycling PET bottles and aluminium cans is cheaper than reusing glass ones.
I'm canning a lot of vegetables and fruits. I reuse jars and lids from store-bought products like mustard or mayonnaise. The lids aren't interchangeable. In fact, there's a huge variety in the lids' shape, size, and thickness. It's especially frustrating when those custom lids lose the sealing and grip over time or they rust. Hunting an exact replacement is often impossible, so you can't reuse this specific jar anymore.
If you're pickling things and are storing them long-term, you absolutely should not re-use jars and lids from store-bought products. Canning lids are not re-usable, and you're risking your life by doing so. Use products intended for home canning, and use a new lid every single time!
> The EU estimates those costs for plastic at about 800 EUR ($950) a ton.
This sounds surprisingly little. In this range, making companies paid up front will have negligible impact on their behavior. Rounding up to $1000 / ton of plastic, that'll come out as few cents for most products. E.g. quick Googling suggests that an empty 2L bottle of Coca Cola weighs about 50 grams, making such tax translate to $0.05 extra cost to company/consumer. That's negligible, and well within the range of the usual business shenanigans companies do with prices.
We broke the fucking loop by claiming that people could just throw plastic containers away and "somewhere, somehow (over the rainbow!!!) people will recycle them into new goods". That story is bullshit - even for most plastics that can actually be recycled.
I want legislation that lays out a set of standardized form factors that are as re-usable as possible (NOT RECYCLABLE - Literally washable and reusable), and if companies use those - great! No extra taxes for you.
Want to use your own custom packaging? Fine, but you pay for the whole fucking product lifecycle up front, before the customer ever touches it: Collection, Cleaning, Recycling/Disposal, Reprocessing, Redistribution. The EU estimates those costs for plastic at about 800 EUR ($950) a ton.