5 Ways Plastic is (Sometimes) Better Than Glass

As an environmentally responsible brand, we think long and hard about the packaging materials we use as we develop our product line. One of our big questions is always: Plastic or glass?

Glass is mostly thought of as the “greenest” choice, but we’ve done our research—and ultimately decided to go with both glass and PET plastic, the cleanest plastic available.

Plastic has a bad reputation, and rightfully so! Many types of plastic can leach harmful chemicals over time into the products that they’re intended to protect, and during the manufacturing process, toxic substances are often released into the air and water. Not to mention, some plastics are difficult to recycle and end up filling landfills and polluting oceans with litter. Not cool AT ALL. But this is not the case with PET plastic.

PET (thermoplastic polymer resin) plastic comes with many green benefits that regular plastics do not:

1: No Toxic Byproducts. The manufacturing of PET plastic leaves behind only hydrogen and water—nothing toxic that could pollute the environment. Even when it's being recycled, it doesn't pollute the environment.

2: Infinite Recyclability! Unlike many other plastics, which eventually break down into their component molecules after being recycled once or twice, PET can be recycled over and over (and over!) with minimal processing. This is why so many plastic products made of recycled plastic are made of PET. Your body wash bottle can become a toothbrush, then a toy, then a shower curtain hook, then another bottle, then part of a pair of shoes.... It can have as many career changes as people can dream up. If it's not going to biodegrade, we better be able to use it again, and that's where PET is star!

3: No nasty leaching. PET has been proven not to leach harmful chemicals into the products it contains. This is a hazard with many other types of plastics used in packaging, but we’d never want to risk compromising the purity of our products in that way.

4: Lightweight = Smaller Carbon Footprint for Transportation. PET plastic is lighter and more compact than glass. It is also less likely to break during transport, which reduces the need for the creation of excess protective packaging materials. For these reasons, it ultimately uses less fossil fuel and energy over the course of the product’s entire lifecycle (including manufacturing and transport), thus creating fewer greenhouse emissions and less solid waste overall. Furthermore, the only byproducts of its actual manufacturing are hydrogen and water—nothing toxic.

5: No shattering in the shower! Glass can easily break and shatter, and that's the last thing you want to risk when standing in the shower—or even at the sink in a bathroom with a hard tile floor, and this is something we take very seriously. Glass can have a more luxurious appearance, but we don't want to get that at the expense of your and your family's safety. This is why we chose to put PLANT products that are typically used in-shower in plastic instead of glass.

So to sum it all up, this is why we’ve decided that plastic is sometimes better than glass here at PLANT!

Happy recycling!