Quote:
Originally Posted by Ownaginatios
lol ya, I remember when we had that discussion months back on almost the same thing.
I think it would be nice if more things came in metal containers over plastic. Metal is pretty much indefinitely recyclable, while plastic degrades quickly after a few cycles. I would see plastic as more viable if we just reused the containers rather than actually melting them down again...
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We can compare plastic vs metal:
Metal
- can be difficult/expensive/environmentally unfriendly to extract
- can be expensive (depending on the price of metals in question)
- indefinitely recyclable
- not all metals are accepted by your everyday recycling plant... most others need to go to special recycling facilities, or end up in scrapyards
- corrosion issues
Plastic
- Can be difficult/expensive/environmentally unfriendly to extract (as oil) and is envionmentally unfriendly to convert to plastic
- Generally quite cheap, although fluctuating oil prices can (will) change that
- Not all plastics are recyclable everywhere, and those that are cannot be recycled indefinitely
- Cannot corrode
- breakable
So, there's pros and cons about both... I think it ends up coming down to cost... we could use more metal products, but they are more expensive to create, and are heavier and therefore more expensive to ship.
