Originally Posted by
storewanderer
But 1000 1ml Containers do not equal the amount of shampoo in 1 1L container. Shampoo containers are not 1 mL.
Anyway the typical shampoo container is 30 ml.
So your comparison of 1,000 small bottles to a single 1 L bottle is is not really relevant. I am comparing amount of product for amount of product. x small bottles = 1 1 L container. It would be more like 33 small bottles to a single 1 L bottle (compare amount of product to amount of product). Because again those 1 L bottles are not being refilled; they are being replaced when empty (at least, at some of the chains).
So the surface area of the small containers would really be 200 sq cm. So actually the small containers use less surface area than the 1 L bottle which as you note above is 300 sq cm. And as you note above the 1 L bottle is thicker.
This also does not take into account people may be more likely to use more product out of a large dispenser vs. use it more conservatively from the little single use containers (especially users who do not get daily maid service). And if more product is used that means more plastic waste is generated.
How much more plastic waste is getting generated by big body wash bottles replacing the old soap bars? A ton. Again negates any benefit here, for the environment.
Also not sure about easier to recycle. In theory they should be. But I am not so sure in practice. By the time these reusable bottles are used and abused they are going to be in such poor condition with gunk on the sides/edges/bottom/back dried on that they will probably end up straight in the trash since these things need to be free of product/gunk in order to be recycled. Actually could see those dirty bottles causing significant damage and contamination to recycling facility plastics or equipment causing even larger batches of plastic not to be able to be recycled, if these are mixed in there. So again that also hurts the environment more.
As another poster above mentioned if they truly cared about the environment and were truly being "green" they would have gone with compostable single use bottles and it would have been a win-win because you eliminate ALL of the plastic waste plus you keep the product sanitary between guests. But they didn't. Those cost too much. Because this isn't about the environment. This is about cutting costs.
If we do it by cubes again, just because the math is shorter to write.
33 cubes containing 1 liter combined would need to be in cubes that are approximately 3.2cm on each side. 3.2*3.2*3.2=32.768 cubic cm, or mL. 32.768*33=1,081.344mL or 1.081344L
The surface of one of these cubes are 3.2*3.2*6=61.44 square cm, we have 33 of them 61.44*33=2027.52 square cm. Well over 3 times surface area of the 1L cube. 10*10*6=600 square cm.
Before you ask me to weigh the plastic from a big and a small bottle, I did. 0.22g of plastic pr ml in a 150ml bottle with pump function, and 0,26g of plastic pr ml with a 35ml soap from a hotel. I have some 80ml Aroma Therapy bottles from a JW in use right now. Once they are empty, I'll be happy to weigh them and add the plastic weight pr ml of product here for additional statistics. I don't have any other pump bottles being close to empty right now.