I think about this a lot actually. I grew up with glass milk bottles and paper meat packaging.
Even being able to estimate this is incredibly far outside of my expertise or knowledge, but I suspect for most products plastic is only cheaper because the externalities are not factored into the price. It seems totally possible to me that for a lot of things glass packaging would be cheaper than plastic if plastic were priced appropriately.
Other things I'm not sure. We could probably approach it differently, using different plastics and requiring re-use. It would be interesting to hear a genuine packaging expert's opinion on the balance point here, I doubt it's truly zero plastic for food. But maybe.
FWIW I think any non-glass non-plastic food packaging is also actually plastic. Paperboard and aluminum & steel cans all have plastic linings at least. I think almost exactly everything does these days. Glass being the one exception still.
Even being able to estimate this is incredibly far outside of my expertise or knowledge, but I suspect for most products plastic is only cheaper because the externalities are not factored into the price. It seems totally possible to me that for a lot of things glass packaging would be cheaper than plastic if plastic were priced appropriately.
Other things I'm not sure. We could probably approach it differently, using different plastics and requiring re-use. It would be interesting to hear a genuine packaging expert's opinion on the balance point here, I doubt it's truly zero plastic for food. But maybe.
FWIW I think any non-glass non-plastic food packaging is also actually plastic. Paperboard and aluminum & steel cans all have plastic linings at least. I think almost exactly everything does these days. Glass being the one exception still.