Glass is made from sand, soda ash and limestone and can be recycled indefinitely without loss of quality. It is inert, so it does not leach plasticisers into food or drink.
If glass ends up in nature, it is far less harmful than plastic. It does not break down into microplastics or release chemicals; it slowly wears into something like sand. Broken glass can still cut people and animals.
It replaces PET and HDPE bottles and jars for drinks, sauces, cosmetics and household products. Supply is global.
Is glass better than plastic? By better, we mean better for the climate: the energy, water and greenhouse gases it takes to make, move and recycle a bottle or jar. On that measure, a single-use glass bottle is usually worse than a plastic (PET) one, because glass is heavy and takes more energy to make and move. A 2023 life-cycle assessment (LCA) by the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), the PET industry's trade body, found single-use PET did better than glass and aluminium on greenhouse gases, energy, water and waste. Glass comes out ahead only when it is reused. A 2025 LCA of reusable glass wine bottles found break-even depends on trip distance and the number of wash cycles, and a 2025 refill-and-reuse bottle study found that over a year of daily use any refillable bottle has negligible impact compared with the 730 single-use PET bottles (two half-litre bottles a day) it replaces.
The bigger point: swapping one throwaway material for another is not the answer. A single-use glass jar is still waste. The best choice is less packaging of any kind, and reuse and refill wherever you can.
Drawbacks: weight increases transport emissions; breakage; higher unit cost. Design for return and refill, or for very high recycling rates, before choosing glass over plastic on environmental grounds.