Plastic Crates = Less Plastic

These plastic crates are used as part of a local returnable bottle supply chain. Consumers in this city also can choose to buy plastic bottles that came with thick plastic wrapped around every six bottles. These come by truck to a local supermarket on a pallet and the whole stack of six-packs are held steady using a lot of plastic wrap. It’s not hard to figure out which option is less wasteful. I had a discussion on twitter recently about the carbon footprint of returnable glass. It really comes down to distance traveled. If packaging and distribution is localized, the returnable glass option looks pretty good. Despite the logic, returnable glass distribution networks continue to disappear in the developed world.