> You imply that it is the people exposed to the risk that largely benefit when it is mostly a margin/profit reward for companies who continue to externalize the environmental costs of plastic onto everybody else.
That argument would work for plastics that are used internally inside eg Coca-Cola.
But your next example talks about bottles handed out to customers. The benefit here is to those customers.
If eg customers were demanding glass bottles (because of some benefit), and demanding them enough to pay the difference in production costs (including shipping costs etc), Coca-Cola would gladly sell them glass bottles.
In any case, corporations are just legal shells. The real stakeholders are still people. Customers, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, rank-and-file workers and, most important in practice, managers.
> If eg customers were demanding glass bottles (because of some benefit)
Please provide evidence that this is market pull rather than company push? How many convenience stores provide a glass or aluminium alternative? How much advertising is done with PET bottles versus the alternatives?
> and demanding them enough to pay the difference in production costs (including shipping costs etc)
Plastic is cheaper because companies have externalized the cost of waste disposal. The environmental impact of plastic has a cost that current polluting companies are not paying.
> Please provide evidence that this is market pull rather than company push? How many convenience stores provide a glass or aluminium alternative? How much advertising is done with PET bottles versus the alternatives?
Most beer comes in glass bottles. The economics that ostensibly make companies prefer PET over glass are just the same for beer as for soda. The difference is in consumer preferences.
> Plastic is cheaper because companies have externalized the cost of waste disposal. The environmental impact of plastic has a cost that current polluting companies are not paying.
Compare this alternative point of view:
Consumers prefers soda in plastic bottles over the alternatives, because they reap all the benefits, while the cost of waste disposal has been externalized. The environmental impact of plastic has a cost that current polluting customers are not paying.
> Most beer comes in glass bottles. The economics that ostensibly make companies prefer PET over glass are just the same for beer as for soda. The difference is in consumer preferences.
Absolutely false, mass volume beer manufacturers would absolutely love to push for plastic beer bottles. However plastic is actually far more permeable to oxygen than glass and so beer slowly goes flat in plastic bottles, which is why they are forced to use glass. The reason is purely technical and has absolutely nothing to do with consumer preference.
That argument would work for plastics that are used internally inside eg Coca-Cola.
But your next example talks about bottles handed out to customers. The benefit here is to those customers.
If eg customers were demanding glass bottles (because of some benefit), and demanding them enough to pay the difference in production costs (including shipping costs etc), Coca-Cola would gladly sell them glass bottles.
In any case, corporations are just legal shells. The real stakeholders are still people. Customers, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, rank-and-file workers and, most important in practice, managers.