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Comment by triceratops | Hacker News Reader

> That only reduces the problem a bit though, it's not a sustainable solution.

Why not? We lived quite happily with a fraction of the plastic usage 60 years ago. It's possible to continue using plastic for critical use-cases like medicine, or engineering uses like aircraft or automobiles where there are no good substitutes, while phasing out consumer usage.

I'd happily take my refillable shampoo bottle, soy sauce bottle, and milk bottle to be filled at the store.

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I actually want to do that. I do purchase refills whenever possible, and I hope such mechanisms are more accessible.

It's ridiculous how many things are thought of as "disposable" today.

For instance, any hand wash comes with a pretty good and durable dispenser. But rarely do I see refills being sold, except when you specifically search for it online.

And pens, especially ball pens. The outfit is perfectly reusable, while rarely do I see the refill being sold. Instead, it's just 20 ball pens sold in a giant bundle. It's like they want to encourage you to throw away everything.

Buy expensive pens like Parker. They have refills. Of course the refills cost more than an entire cheap pen, but you want refills, not cheap.

I want cheap and refills. Reuse should be cheaper than buying new everything. Pricing today is backwards because it externalizes the costs of throwaway everything. We collectively pay the price of cheap, unrepairable, unrefillable, un-re-usable goods.

Using a fountain pen, refilled from an ink bottle, is not too expensive. Buy a $20-30 Lamy Safari as a good first pen (the shape of the grip helps to ensure you hold it correctly). Unless you're writing novels by hand, a smaller ink bottle will last a long time. I've not had to buy new pens or new ink for a couple years (I'll need to buy more ink soon). I keep a couple ballpoint pens around for random things where that's easier (what they can write on, not all papers take fountain pen inks very well). I don't buy those, they're usually the freebies given away by car dealerships, doctors, banks, whatever. I use them until they stop writing.

Forget pens. What about the other day-to-day consumer goods? Toiletries, food products?

I've seen pen refills, but they end up having as much packaging as cheap throw away pens.

Target sells refills for many of the brands of hand soap they carry right on the same shelf next to the small dispensers...

Which come in large plastic bottles...

but the volume to surface-area ratio increases as the size of the object increases, bigger is better

I'd like the fresh-ground coffee model for soap, shampoo, detergent, cleaning products, food products. Aisle filled with dispensers that I can fill my own bottle with, have it weighed at checkout. That's way less waste.

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