memes

I'm not sure this is a straw man, but I think it's reasonable to argue that it could be considered one, given that the study talks about single-use glass whereas the meme is specifically showing a glass bottle that gets reused.

From the study itself:

Glass bottles, both virgin and recycled had high impacts compared to all other product systems, however thisdoes not consider the potential of reusing the glass bottles.

Given that page 56 shows that a brand new glass milk bottle is about 4x as impactful as their suggested alternative (carton) and a recycled one is about twice as impactful we can say that even using the lower bound of 20 mentioned in the study of reuses, the extra transport and cleaning would need to have at least 80% the impact of manufacturing a carton before reusable glass bottles could be considered worse than single-use cartons. Taking more optimistic values for glass (40 reuses of recycled glass), it's more like 95%.

The study does mention how reuse of glass can reduce the impact:

The LCA by Mata and Costa, (2001) found that reused glass bottle schemes had far lower impacts in all tested impact categories scoped into that study, than non-re- turned glass systems. Whilst this study was undertaken under the former ISO standards, it still indicates that reuse of glass would be beneficial, especially when compared to single use glass bottles.

It talks about more complex logistics, but we have literally done this before and we still have communities that do this today. The logistics aren't complex enough to make them unfeasible - we simply need to put in incentives that make it more profitable for businesses to include reuse in their logistics. One example of that would be a packaging waste tax. When sold by the manufacturer, a tax gets included that covers the cost of disposal of packaging. The company then gets a credit for each reuse.

Does it really? Or, do you only look at pictures when you “read.” See my recent response to PugJesus below. You commit the same logical fallacy. Sure, it’s (perhaps) a direct rebuttal to the pictures. But, the meme is more than that if you actually read the words. And, the words are the “argument.”

So, to answer your question: Yes. I understand logical fallacies well. PugJesus “sets up and attacks a position that is not being debated.”

The meme shows a reusable glass bottle (the same one I get my milk delivered in, actually). The study explicitly excludes reuse of the glass bottles and notes that they'll generally get reused 20-40 times, reducing their impact.

The 1:1 comparison, at least where I live, is of single-use "recyclable" plastic to reusable glass bottles, which this study does not do.

The straw man to which OP is referring is the specific assumption that one is replacing single use plastic with single use glass, which is a much weaker statement than what my interpretation of OP's meme was, which includes reusing the glass.

If OP had used a glass coke bottle (for which I can't find the same evidence of reuse, and which do have much longer logistics chains, increasing the impact of the Glass's weight), the interpretation of single use glass would be more reasonable.

The meme has to do with “ancient tech” vs. “progress.” The pictures could be “old internet” vs enshittified internet. Or, a calculator vs chatGPT. Or, old electric cars vs tech platforms with wheels.

The point being what we often call “progress” is in fact the opposite. You know, the “words” I “actually used” in the meme … vs. the straw man you created.

Theories abound as to why toddlers are more interested in things that “defy expectation.” The bouncier, the more attraction. The shinier, the more the attraction … etc. Marketers know this well and exploit it. We’re not logical — we knee jerk react instead actually thinking about the thing in front of us.

Like assuming, without really thinking about it, that this meme is about glass vs. plastic.

No. It’s about the title. Again, the words I “said.” Which were “The Human Condition.”

Thank you for providing a stunning exemplar of my point.