That you can't taste a difference does not negate the fact that I can.

I never meant to imply that it did. It'd be interesting to know how many people can tell a difference and whether or not that affects their purchasing decision, especially if they're trying to factor other things such as price, availability, perceived eco-friendliness, etc.

Your link, from 2009, says that if your aluminum can uses a lot of recycled material and if your bottle does not and if your bottle has been shipped a long way, the edge glass has over aluminum goes down.

Indeed it does. But, your original statement was that glass is a better material to recycle than aluminum, which was what I was addressing. I'd like to point out that your counter statement also contains an "if."

Glass bottles would make more environmental sense if they were refillable, as they are in parts of Europe and Canada.

if they were refillable

if <--- see? right there.

Whether or not it's from 2009 is probably a moot point, if the data is still consistent. If we have new data to work with, obviously that'd be better. Either way, it's good information to have when we're trying to look at best practices for consumer habits, marketing, and whether or not we choose to recycle or reuse. If we want to focus on recycling and long shipment times are the norm, maybe aluminum is better. If we try to focus on re bottling and aim to keep things local (which I always encourage doing local), then bottles are probably the better way to go. Or, like the article says, maybe we oughta pay more attention to kegs. If we go back to the flavor argument, I think draft was always the best choice, so that's another point in the favor of kegs.

On a personal note, it's interesting that this article is from 2009. That's about the time I started paying attention to stuff like this. The first thing that got me thinking was the often made argument that it would be more environmentally friendly to buy a used Hummer and drive it to death than buy a brand new Prius. That got me looking into all sorts of things, from whether or not it's environmentally friendly to recycle paper, whether or not the Forest Stewardship Council is an effective organization, the best way to dispose of batteries, composting, on and on and on. It seems the answer for so many of these questions tend to be "Well, it depends" and half the time the "it depends" is about consumer habits.

Thanks for having this conversation with me. You got that part of my noodle cooking again.