Plastic or glass?

[*~InTheBroomCloset~*]

To hold sand, water salt etc...which is better? Was thinking plastic may effect its natural energies but does it really matter?

[Siona]

I think most prefer a more natural material, like glass, stone, clay, or metal, but you can really use whatever you have on hand that will do the job.

[planewalker]

If I'm going to store whatever for any period longer then a week I prefer glass but that's just me. It is probably the best bet with liquids. It doesn't matter a hill of beans for solids. I'm just lazy. I've been active in the Arts for long enough that I've got the things I store already labeled.

[SpiritTalker]

I tend to think man -made ceramics and recycled glass are as synthetic as man made plastics. Both are derived from Originally natural materials that are chemically or heat treated. While glass does occur raw in nature, the stuff we call glass, is also a man made material. Metal is altered by being extracted from ore, treated with additives and heated and shaped. Possibly porcelain is close to natural and some is made with bone.

So where do we draw the line for defining something that is natural? A dried gourd, sea shell, raw or carved stone, not recultured stone, and wood are about as close as i guess we can get. And to me, it really doesn't matter...it's all from nature at some point. Oh, and salt corrodes metals and some plastics, & dries wood, & almost needs glass.

[nightshroud]

That's true so be careful what you use.

[planewalker]

I stay away from the plastic with liquid for the same reason I drain and refill the plastic two liter soda bottles I use in my survival kit. I figure if the water gets a plastic taste then for anything used in casting you're likely to get some plastic as a ride along molecule or few.

[TwilightDancer]

I personally prefer glass.
Since it's not so good for the environment, I try to avoid plastic whenever possible.

[crescent]

I try to avoid plastic anyway, but suppose the argument could be made for glass being able to contain better, since plastics can be permeable.

[Siona]

I tend to think man -made ceramics and recycled glass are as synthetic as man made plastics.
So where do we draw the line for defining something that is natural?

To be fair, I did say more natural, not just natural... That said, just because something is heated and shaped, doesn't mean its core materials have been changed. Glass is one of the few things that can be recycled 100%, so recycled glass is still just glass, which is sand, limestone, etc... Copper is copper, even if it's a ring, a coin, or a bowl. They may use other things to help separate the copper from the ore it's mined in, but there's no chemical synthesis going on there. On the other hand, most plastics are very much synthetic by the definition of the word. (To the extent that dictionary.com actually uses plastic for their example of synthetic.)

Which is not to say that I think all synthetic things are terrible and all natural things are great for you, because I don't think that's the case at all. Growing up I always heard that the three R's, reduce, reuse, and recycle, should be done in that order. So I reuse a number of little plastic tubs for all sorts of things. But like Planewalker, experiences in storing water make me lean to glass or clay (depending on what needs storing) for many of my supplies.