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Comment by mjevans | Hacker News Reader

Plastic likes:

  'waterproof' (fluid proof for many things)

  Difficult to shatter (drop safe-ish) 

  Shows stuff off 'nicely'

Priced inexpensively (damage to the commons is not factored in...)

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Yep, plastic has a lot of benefits. But I genuinely don't think the translucency is that much of a selling point. If plastic could not be translucent and was always opaque, I think we would still use it for almost all of the same use-cases as we do today, on the back of durability + weight alone.

> If plastic could not be translucent and was always opaque, I think we would still use it for almost all of the same use-cases as we do today, on the back of durability + weight alone.

- any sort of housing window and display protection, I have at least half a dozen within easy reach not including actual computer displays

- transparent food packaging is important to both identify the product and ascertain its state (especially at the store e.g. berries)

- viewing liquid levels at a glance is extremely useful

It’s almost like we just gave up on making glass less breakable when we found plastic

I'm haunted by a story I read once, about East German beer glasses that were unbreakable. They developed them because of a serious shortage of raw materials as I recall. I would be happy to buy two dozen and pass them on to my family when I die. But that's the problem, isn't it? The lack of sales. Just ask Pyrex, I guess?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41173177

Aha! I'd forgotten where I'd read it, but it makes sense it was here. Thank you!

A plastic bottle is not just less breakable. It's also way lighter weight than glass, and harder to dent and pierce than aluminum.

Also needs to be robust to salt and acid, aluminum cans have a plastic lining.

Part of the reason that a lot of drinks in aluminium have short shelf life. Acidity eventually makes aluminium leak into the drink.

On a very long timeline, sure

Slightly different situation with steel in contact with the contents, but this can happen rapidly: https://kaiserscience.wordpress.com/chemistry/electrochemist...

I'm not sure if there is a scenario something similar could happen with a drink.

More importantly, and unlike glass, if you do break plastic, it's not dangerous.

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