Like it or not packaging does serve a purpose. If it was only fed back into the waste stream it could be recycled, but lazy people are lazy. In your example above if you forget your own bottle you buy another anyway, so who would win? The retailer

You already buy a bottle that will last thousands of years anyway.

Bring your own paper bag to the dispenser and fill it with crisps or biscuits or cornflakes or flour? Nah.

Tupperware, it’s going to blow your mind. If you’re quick you could travel back in time and sell it in peoples homes at parties.

It doesn’t though, does it. That might work for drinks, ignoring the abuse the system would get (free refills! Yay!)

No more open to abuse than the current ‘system’ and shoplifting.

In exactly the same way!? Pubs and restaurants have soft drinks on pumps…

This would also have the added effect of largely stopping people from buying soft drinks as the stuff from pumps / guns is absolutely rank.

so who would win?

Te environment! How many 3 pound bottles are realistically going to be thrown away?

Bring your own paper bag to the dispenser and fill it with crisps or biscuits or cornflakes or flour? Nah.

Even American supermarkets are way ahead of us on this. It isn’t uncommon to take your own plastic containers and fill them up there. Think how much is saved on not transporting half empty boxed good around as well. But it is catching on here as well

Te environment! How many 3 pound bottles are realistically going to be thrown away?

You could say the same thing about bags for life. Turns out that isn’t the answer either

Bags for life are part of the answer, just as are bottle deposits, and bring you own containers for food. It is a big problem that involves granular actions to solve it. Think of it like dieting, there isn’t a quick fix, it takes many changes that you have to keep to for the rest of your life.

Came across this this morning 30 yards from mcds door. Very very sad as the bin is empty!!

You could say the same thing about bags for life. Turns out that isn’t the answer either

Turned out they were, but people switch off their brains and read clickbait about something tangentially related.

The point wasn’t to reduce CO2 emissions, it was to reduce waste.

If reducing CO2 emissions was the sole goal then throwing single use plastic out in the street is by far the lowest emission way of disposing of it. And the plastic bag contains the carbon and doesn’t degrade into greenhouse gasses.

Bring your own paper bag to the dispenser and fill it with crisps or biscuits or cornflakes or flour? Nah.

Wow! Just like the 70s and 80s then?

Came across this this morning 30 yards from mcds door. Very very sad as the bin is empty!!

Bins like that are lined with a PE bag to empty easily. It’s blown away, leaving the rubbish on the floor. Unfortunate, but not necessarily the fault of Ronald or the consumers.

That doesn’t fuel the impotent rage quite so much, does it?