> A returnable milk bottle takes much more energy to produce and much more fuel to transport than a plastic carton, and has to make around ten or more trips to use less energy than a bottle made from polyethylene plastic.

This seems like the weakest of presented arguments. Just 10 trips and it's more environmentally friendly? Yeah, seems like reusable milk bottles wins over plastic. That's what, ~10 weeks for payback?

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marcosdumay 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Returned bottles have a finite lifetime after what they have to be trashed. Glass bottles tend to be reused some (small) tens of times, plastic bottles certainly last a lot less.

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cogman10 an hour ago | parent [-]

Google AI is saying 25->30 on average with a high of 50.

That still ends up being translated to 1/2 to 1/3 (up to 1/5th) the energy of plastic.

Glass is also one of the few good cases for recycling.

	▲	marcosdumay a few seconds ago \| parent [-]
		Granted, glass bottles are also the one good case for recycling glass. But keep in mind the article's energy number is for plastic bottles, glass uses more energy. Returnable glass bottles are probably better than disposed plastic ones. Returnable plastic bottles (for food) probably aren't.