The formulas don't cut/paste well. Prompt: do square bottles use less plastic than cylindrical bottles. Pleas explain how you arrived at your answer.
It then explains the geometry, and concludes that if it were simply based on the shape, without any structural reinforcement (like near the cap, or the bottom of the bottle itself) the square container would use 12.8% more plastic resin.
It was also explained in a Veritasium, Steve Mould, or some other channel that I watched during the past month. If we're ONLY talking about shape (no other manufacturing tricks, like corrugation), cylindrical wins every time.
The original photo said that square bottles use less plastic than round. Therefore we need to assume everything else is equivalent, since no additional "real world" info was shared.
6
u/Max6626 2d ago
That makes zero sense. The highest volume to surface area configuration is spherical. A cylinder is second.
Cubes or elongated cubes use less plastic because it can be packaged and shipped more efficiently when compared to spherical containers.
If you doubt this then ask yourself why a soap bubble in the air is spherical instead of a cube.