Replacing Plastics With Glass

There are many reasons why plastic containers largely replaced glass in the 1970s. The petroleum crisis made the price of transport an issue and glass is expensive. It can’t be squeezed, and it breaks when kids drop it. There seemed nothing wrong with plastics in the mid-20th century. Even being made of oil, they actually saved more oil. This is no longer necessarily the case.

Of course, this doesn’t take into account the impact that plastics pollution would have when it escaped the normal routes of underground disposal. And in facilities where plastic was incinerated without exhaust control for many years, a massive amount of toxic substances was released into the global atmosphere contributing to both air and soil pollution. The breakdown products are sometimes toxic themselves, but how they’ll interact with each other largely remains unknown.

Even some of the plastics that are commonly used are now known to cause problems, such as plastic baby bottles and cups. These are now being phased out in favor of washable glass.