Originally Posted by storewanderer

They are cheaper because you have a greater efficiency in packaging the product in a larger bottle. Easier to put a big 24 ounce lump into a bottle than do 24 little 1 ounce lumps. Fewer manufacturing "motions." Cheaper manufacturing process. Has nothing to do with the environment at all. One movement to package the single 24 ounce bottle (vs. 24 movements to do the 24 little ones). One label (albeit a bigger label) on a big bottle vs. 24 little labels on 24 little bottles means it is cheaper to do the labeling process.

As for source on weight, save your bottles and weigh them and you will see. All you have to do is take an empty single use shampoo bottle and an empty "bigger" bottle of a plastic item you have in your house (perhaps it is body wash or shampoo) but making sure it is one that is including the spout/dispenser and weigh it and you will see. The weight of the plastic from the bigger 24 ounce plastic bottle with a spout/dispenser is going to be more than 24 times the weight of the little single use bottle that holds 1 ounce of shampoo, due to the greater thickness of the larger bottle as well as the thick plastic spout/dispenser which is not present in the little bottles.

Again this not only has nothing to do with the environment but it actually has the opposite effect on the environment. People have been duped so badly on this.

The contamination risk with these shared dispensers, reusable super thick plastic cups (these- I do think actually help the environment and actually do reduce plastic use after less than a dozen uses but it is disgusting to expect a Starbucks to accept your reusable cup behind their counter), reusable super thick plastic bags sold for 10 cents in stores (another joke that uses 10-20x more plastic than the thin ones but is not used 10 or 20 times so net negative impact to the environment again), is no different now than it was a year ago. The difference now is it is highlighted. The public is scared of Coronavirus and more scared of contamination now. A larger segment of people will be uncomfortable with these shared dispensers because of fears that have risen from this Coronavirus era. There is no positive environmental benefit to these shared hotel dispensers in the first place so what is the point? Cost savings. Nothing more.