Plastic

Errkal wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:Cans are also a lot lighter than glass for transporting.

Glass has the advantage of being reusable, so I think glass bottles would come out on top if you reused them enough, but I can't find a definitive enough source for comparing life cycles.

The issue I think with glass is that to reuse them as is everyone would need to use generic bottles or you have to find a way of getting the bottles back to the company who owns them, and people would have to accept that they aren't going to be super shiney and perfect like plastic ones are.

I'm pretty sure you lose a little glass in the recycling process but I could be wrong so it isn't a perfect cycle, but it is just too easy to have glass drop out of the system with being smashed and getting stratched to gooseberry fool if you are reusing rather than reproducing.

Which is why Aluminium has the edge as you dont need to get stuff back to source you just melt it down and make the new thing.

Yeah my mind was wandering to milk bottles, which I think are reused, but otherwise you're right, stuff like coke bottles are one use only so cans are definitely better!

The issue with providing free water in public is that you'd probably still need to provide some kind of container as folk who wild carry bottles to make use of free water probably already do and youd not attract the Evian bottles crew.

Bunni wrote:The issue with providing free water in public is that you'd probably still need to provide some kind of container as folk who wild carry bottles to make use of free water probably already do and youd not attract the Evian bottles crew.

I'd sell empty plastic bottles for like 10p and let people fill them up, sure you're still using plastic but you're no longer transporting around all that heavy water.

I don't think they would do it though, I think they like the whole look of drinking "Evian" or whatever.

Also despite plastics being considerably better now there is still a stigma thing to reusing plastic where people believe it will be bad for you to do it.

It is certainly improving though the number of people you see with "bobble" bottles and those bottles you can add fruit into a holder thing is definitely growing.

Water taps and things would be good but they would need to be in places as I dont think many would trust a tap on the street as either someone would be a gooseberry fool head and rub gooseberry fool on it or everyone would just think "well if I use that I'm going to be water aids".

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Bunni wrote:The issue with providing free water in public is that you'd probably still need to provide some kind of container as folk who wild carry bottles to make use of free water probably already do and youd not attract the Evian bottles crew.

I'd sell empty plastic bottles for like 10p and let people fill them up, sure you're still using plastic but you're no longer transporting around all that heavy water.

But then you'd have to manufacture and transport the same stuff that weighs less. It's so much effort for such a little change it barely seems worth it. I'm not sure it would catch on, having to buy a bottle and then find somewhere to fill it up.

Bunni wrote:

OrangeRakoon wrote:

Bunni wrote:The issue with providing free water in public is that you'd probably still need to provide some kind of container as folk who wild carry bottles to make use of free water probably already do and youd not attract the Evian bottles crew.

I'd sell empty plastic bottles for like 10p and let people fill them up, sure you're still using plastic but you're no longer transporting around all that heavy water.

But then you'd have to manufacture and transport the same stuff that weighs less. It's so much effort for such a little change it barely seems worth it. I'm not sure it would catch on, having to buy a bottle and then find somewhere to fill it up.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_no ... ks+bottles

At already happens people just don't have the fill up place other than at home and work.

Aye but people are far more likely to re use those bottles than simply shipping an empty Evian bottle and selling it for 10p. They'd just get binned and buy a new one each time you need to 'refil'.

ahhh sorry i didn't realise that was what you meant, yeah I can't see that working at all.

I think they only way to change stuff would be for the water sellers to instead of having a shelf of bottles have a dispenser that you can fill your own bottle with whatever and it charges you for however much if dispensed, like a petrol pump.

They they just ship the water out in something like a KeyKeg that can be broken down and recycled. https://www.keykeg.com/

You pretty much can do that already. Restaurants and food outlets will give tap water for free so you can take a bottle in and get it topped up. The point is that half the population wouldn't bother with an unbranded reusable bottle and there's not so much alternative. Even if food outlets and such advertised 'top up your bottle for free here' it would still only attract those who have made the change. Also it wouldn't attract the crowd who feel bottled is superior in taste to tap.

Bring back the bottle deposit/return scheme to encourage recycling of convenience bottles. Advertise the fact that places will fill up free making reusable bottles as accessible as the Evian stuff sold every 10 feet to encourage folk to invest in a reusable one. That might be more helpful. You can't get rid of bottled water all together. Firstly that only represents a small percentage of bottle waste (you can't get tango out a tap which means the water crowd get brow beaten more since there is an 'alternative') and secondly there will always be a reason the most hardened anti plastic person will buy one. Like airports with fluid restrictions or that day you forgot to bring one from home.

That's where the despenser system works though, they can sell an evian bottle that's reusable like Costa and Starbucks do and you go to the local coop or whatever like now and fill it at the Evian WaterStationTM

Don't they sell water in tins now? Getting rid of plastic altogether seems good.

I like the idea of public water but we all know that at the very least they would be used to urinate into.

Errkal wrote:That's where the despenser system works though, they can sell an evian bottle that's reusable like Costa and Starbucks do and you go to the local coop or whatever like now and fill it at the Evian WaterStationTM

Chances are if you're popping to the coop for a bottle of water you're going for convenience. So 50p for a disposable bottle will win over a few quid for a plastic one. Yes some people will buy them but will they be reused every time? How many people have you seen taking a their own cup into costa? Even with the 30p discount it's few and far between.

KK wrote:In the summer I always carry a bottle of water with me (whichever is the cheapest, usually Sainsbury's Caledonian) but not the rest of the year.

The water in certain parts of London really is terrible though; the limescale is so bad in my area I have a Brita cartridge in my kettle (and even then it still begins to build up) and I regularly have to buy descalers for the washing machine and shower head.

Can't say I've found the charge on plastic bags to be inconvenient at all as I always carry around a rucksack. Oddly enough supermarkets still use them for online deliveries, whether you ask for them or not. Sainsbury's put frozen foods in a brownish bag, substitutes in blue, meat in the standard orange.

buy a reusable bottle and fill it up each day?

If people were forced to fill up water for free from a tap every day, where would they get their social interaction and buying power endorphins from? Certainly not buying fags, because those are basically outlawed now, and certainly not alcohol, because you can't get away with a hip flask at work anymore. And now they want to make it virtually impossible to buy my water multiple times from different sources and in different receptacles. I've spent years being told what to buy and why I need it, and I thought water was the right habitual thing to buy and fiddle with because it is healthy, just like cigarettes or a glass of wine were. And to buy my own receptacles, separately from the water? And re-use those? Gross!

This is madness. Before we know it, shops selling things we already have or don't need will be over and that will be the death of British commerce. Think of the corner shops, they need the 90p per bottle I give them! It is practically supporting charity, without that they will be homeless (I've been told bottled water makes up over 60% of my local Indian's proceeds!) They don't need any water over in the gulf of Africa, they are used to being dry, and they don't need bottles because they can carry water on their heads in jugs they get as family heirlooms so no need to buy those either. Keep sending them here, it's good for business which is good for everyone.

I recycle when I can but in Germany I am more aware of the bottles I’m useing mainly because I like collecting quite a few and getting a payout from a Pfand machine, I think it would work here in the same was the 5p carrier bag tax has dramatically reduced disposable bag usage and littering