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Comment by ImAnAmateur | Hacker News Reader

And this is in addition to the regular known risk of plastic leeching into water over time as the water bottle breaks down or hot/freezing temperatures that can also cause the water bottle to break down.

I spoke to a 70 year old co-worker yesterday. They talked about a time when plastic wasn't used anywhere beyond Saran Wrap. How much of our modern plastic use is youthful folly? I grew up with it being normal so I didn't question it. Changing away from it would be abnormal! I suspect there will be a sharp turn away from plastics in several years, but I can't really fathom what that will be to instead. Paper? Metals? Wax? Glass?

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Plastic industry explosion is last 40 years. I think today almost nobody remembers Pepsi or Coca Cola in glass bottles. Suddenly it has become more expensive to wash bottles than to poison people and the planet.

If you enter "pepsi" in image search then all it's there is plastic bottles or aluminum cans.

Apart from "water producers" (sic!) the largest plastic-producing industry is kids' toys. Think all the guns, kiddie bikes, cars, dolls and a lot more. Plastic toys wrapped in plastic, breaking after 1 day, or a week, then thrown away. Or kids growing up and toys thrown away as well.

Or parcel shipping. Even the smallest item sent wrapped in enormous amounts of stretch wrap with bubble wrap inside.

Or theft protection: a micro SD card a size of nail wrapped in 20-cm long and thick plastic to prevent it being easily stolen.

Governments around the world are more than happy to tolerate all that.

At the 80-90's all was returnable glass (In Europe at least).

You bought the drinks, which were distributed in glass bottles (with stickers of the brand and everything. Like the actual plastic bottles), latter you returned the glass bottles to the store and they gave you money for it.

One day started to be promoted Tetra Brik, whose interior is made of plastic. This coincided with a proliferation of large supermarkets, that burst in selling products cheaper than local neighborhood stores (the place were was returned the glass bottles). It was marketed at TV as super ecologic, better than the glass, and that it could be thrown in the bin.

Plastic bottles for drinks were introduced immediately afterwards.

The local neighborhood stores didn't survived the large supermarkets dumping, but at that time the plastic bottles was already introduced.

EDIT: I have no clear when was introduced the aluminum cans, whose interior is plastic also.

It’s my understanding that the plastification of paper to make it waterproof is worse, ecologically speaking, than just using straight up plastic.

How do we wrap all the dairy, meat, and whatnot at the grocery store? How was it done 100 years ago? Heck, how was this done 200 years ago?

Butcher paper is a thing since the 1880s. Can be waxed or unwaxed and is FDA approved for meat and other foods.

What about micro waxes? Paraffin waxes are known to contains carcinogens such as benzine.

I always wondered if we would see hemp get seriously used here. Not a materials engineer, but the little bit I know about hemp, seems like it could be a good replacement.

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