Dear Editor,
I read Damien Gayle's piece on recycled plastic bottles leaching more chemicals into drinks (The Guardian, 18th March 2022, link below) but also find the title of the article disconcerting as (obviously) all plastic bottles leach chemicals into drinks.
The solution proposing that we buy fewer bottled drinks sounds reasonable and logical. But I was perturbed by the suggestion that industry needed to invest in "new super-cleaning technologies". What on earth is that all about? In the title it is stated that the simple fact of the matter is that plastic bottles contaminate their contents * ... recycled bottles, somewhat more.
So why bother with hi-tech fixes (e.g. super-cleaning)? Why not simply move back to using returnable&reusable glass containers? That would be the simplest, wouldn't it?
But I think I can already answer this question as big corporations now have centralised, cost-minimised packaging/distribution networks and are therefore loath to deal with returned bottles which, in the past, would have be returned just a few miles to the local bottling plant.
My big frustration is that we always seem to think that, for every problem, we need a "new technology". Why not, instead, take a look at how things were done in the past ... before we had such packaging- and freighting- madness.
Regards
