HeyBub wrote:

Pete C. wrote:

When I was a kid, we took our coke bottles back to the store to get
our 2 cent deposit back. They washed 'em out and refilled 'em. Makes
sense to me.

Yes, however they aren't allowed to do that anymore. Now the glass has
to be remelted and remolded into new bottles to ensure there are no
post-consumer cooties left, which uses more energy (when you include
the transportation), than just making new bottles from raw materials.

This is also true of many things. It's easier and cheaper to provide plastic
forks than to wash metal ones. But here's an item that's even more profound:
Books.

About 40% of mass-market paperback books are destroyed without being read.

When a publisher sells a book to a bookstore, the sale includes return
privileges: if the store doesn't sell the book, the publisher will take it
back for credit.

But in the case of paperbacks, the publisher doesn't want the physical book.
Since it costs only about 20¢ to manufacture a paperback, it's obviously
cheaper to print another copy than to transport, sort, and restock one that
didn't sell - and that probably won't sell even if the publisher managed to
get it back in the warehouse.

So, to prove the bookstore didn't actually sell the book, the bookstore rips
off the front cover and forwards that cover to the publisher. The rest of
the book is, by contract, destroyed.

(The same is true of magazines.)

The growth of on demand publishing and online magazines will reduce that
a bit over time.