Alternatively, we do away with non-alcoholic pre-mixed beverages entirely, which are mostly water, replacing them with something like fountain machines or even powder mix. Like a kurig or soda stream but instead of using single-serve containers, it uses a refillable glass tube (or something) of concentrate and meters it out as needed, and uses refillable co2 containers, for example.

Another option is to do on-site, on-demand filling, like what breweries do with glass growlers. You bring a glass or stainless steel gallon or half gallon jug, they do a rinse with sanitizing water, fill it up, and send you on your way. We could even bring back swing top bottles for individual servings (I have like 50 of those and they are amazing for beer and kombucha), and just use local or on-site bottling.

There are lots of options that don’t involve single-use plastics, and also don’t involve tons of extra shipping costs. We just have to incentivize making that switch at the company/producer level, rather than the consumer level. Like reusable bags. If the polluting option isn’t an option, people will adjust.