Glass bottles are much WORSE for the environment than plastic because manufacturing them uses more energy and resources, study finds
- Researchers from Southampton evaluated various types of beverage packaging
- They considered the impact of glass and plastic bottles, cans and milk cartons
- Part of the problem with glass bottles is that they are not reused enough today
- The most environmentally-friendly containers are cartons and aluminium cans
The manufacturing of glass bottles is so energy- and resource-intensive that it makes them four times worse for environment than plastic bottles, a study has warned.
Researchers from Southampton evaluated the impact of various types of beverage packaging — including glass and plastic bottles, aluminium cans and milk cartons.
They concluded that plastic bottles are certainly bad for the environment, as their manufacture requires significant amounts of energy.
Furthermore, they are long-lasting after disposal and have the potential to break down and spread as microplastics which are thought harmful to health.
However, the team concluded, the total impact of glass bottles is worse once their energy footprint and the damage of resource mining is taken into account.
Furthermore, glass bottles are all too often discarded after a single use nowadays, they said — despite being such having the potential to be reused 12–20 times.
The most environmentally-friendly drink containers, the team concluded, were milk and juice-style cartons and 100 per cent aluminium cans.
The manufacturing process for glass bottles (pictured) is so energy-intensive that it makes them much worse for environment than plastic bottles, a study has warned (stock image)
‘A massive amount of energy is needed to heat the raw materials to make glass,’ paper author and environmental scientist Alice Brock of the University of Southampton told the i paper.
‘During the melting of the raw materials for glass, gas pollutants can be released such as sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide,’ she added.
‘And since glass requires materials to be mined for its production — silica sand, soda ash and dolomite – this has all the environmental impacts associated with mining.’
These, Dr Brock explained, include the degradation of the land, the emission of dust and the risk of mining runoff polluting water sources.
Furthermore, the mining of silica sand can result in silicosis, an occupational health disease in which the inhalation of crystalline silica dust causes inflammation and scarring of the lung tissue — and is a permanent disease with no cure.
According to the researchers, around a firth of the raw materials that go into glass production are lost as greenhouse effect-inducing carbon dioxide and other gases.
Glass outweighed plastic in its negative contributions to climate change, freshwater and toxicity, ocean acidification and so-called freshwater eutrophication — the phenomenon when nutrient-rich waters induce dangerous levels of algal growth.
Glass outweighed plastic in its negative contributions to climate change, freshwater and toxicity, ocean acidification and so-called freshwater eutrophication — the phenomenon when nutrient-rich waters induce dangerous levels of algal growth. Pictured, glass bottle production
‘I think the implications of this research are we really have to move to reuse bottles and cans. Just recycling isn’t enough,’ Dr Brock told the i paper.
‘We need to change our mindset and move to things like refilling bottles, bottle return schemes and the like if we are going to cut these environmental impacts.’
While cartons were found to be less harmful to the environment overall than both glass and plastic bottles, they still contain plastic elements.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Detritus.