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They idea was that milk and drinks and such in glass bottles could be consumed, the glass container could be returned (intact) to the bottler, they could be washed, and they could then be refilled for consumption once again.
Revolutionary idea, huh? Yeah... way to much logic for our time.
Bottom line is that glass bottles don't maximize profit for packaging manufacturers. Once those glass bottles are constructed, they last a LONG time unless they are broken/abused. Plastic on the other hand is a bottomless well for the manufacturer. And profit is the only thing that matters, right?
Something else to know about. Glass can be re-melted. And like an earlier post mentioned, melting glass is a high-temperature process. You don't even have to wash the glass bottles. Just crush them and the melting process will kill the germs.
Something else to know about. Glass can be re-melted. And like an earlier post mentioned, melting glass is a high-temperature process. You don't even have to wash the glass bottles. Just crush them and the melting process will kill the germs.
True, but I don't see the practicality of that. Do we crush our dishes or drinking glasses each time after we eat or drink from them? It's relatively easy to clean and sterilize a glass bottle, jar, plate, etc.
Of course, if the bottle is no longer useful for whatever it was made for, then yes, by all means, recycle it rather than worrying about saving a few cents and choking the entire planet with useless plastic eyesores.
True, but I don't see the practicality of that. Do we crush our dishes or drinking glasses each time after we eat or drink from them? It's relatively easy to clean and sterilize a glass bottle, jar, plate, etc.
Of course, if the bottle is no longer useful for whatever it was made for, then yes, by all means, recycle it rather than worrying about saving a few cents and choking the entire planet with useless plastic eyesores.
We don't do that with our dishes and drinking glasses, but that's the thing, those things belong to "us" as and personal ownership. A glass bottled that recycled has been used by someone else.
I think the main cost of recycling is the collection and transportation (and in some cases the sorting out of undesirable contamination). The actual conversion from used to new by melting or such is a minor part of the economics.
For example, I saw a TV show (Modern Marvels, I think), that said that the cost of collecting aluminum cans and transporting them to the aluminum smelters costs SIX time the cost of mining the ore. But making aluminum from ore requires VAST amounts of electricity, way less than that required to melt cans already made from refined metal.
I think the same equation doesn't work for glass or plastic. The transport costs are still high, but the difference is much less between the cost to reconfigure glass or plastic, vs make it new.
The problem of using old glass bottles over and over is that a particular bottle would have to be sorted out and sent to the original producer. You couldn't put a soft drink in a mayonaise jar, or ketchup in a milk bottle.
You are talking about a lot of money to hire people to sort and transport glass.
The problem of using old glass bottles over and over is that a particular bottle would have to be sorted out and sent to the original producer. You couldn't put a soft drink in a mayonaise jar, or ketchup in a milk bottle.
You are talking about a lot of money to hire people to sort and transport glass.
Thus, we continue our wasteful behavior to save a dollar.
As I recall, I returned a six pack of Coke bottles for 5 cents a piece (or whatever it was) at the store, the bottles were picked up by the distributor that supplied Coke to the store, they were taken back to the bottler, the bottles were washed, sterilized, and refilled, and then they were restocked at the store. It really wasn't rocket science. Those bottles lasted years and years unless they were broken or abused. I actually have several pristine milk bottles from the 30's or 40's sitting on a shelf. They could go back into service tomorrow.
It seems to me we need to decide whether spending a couple of pennies extra for a bottle of whatever is preferable to choking our planet with plastic refuse or not. My view is that money is not all that matters in this world.
You didn't have a minimum wage of over seven bucks an hour in those days either. I hate to think what a bottle of Coke would cost now if everyone that handled it was paid the mimimum.
The first is "Do I want to spend my resources (cash, time, etc) on an effort that will help the environment."
The second is "What can that resources be spent on that most effectively does that goal."
To evaluate the economics of recycling, you don't consider "Should I recycle or not" but rather "If my town votes to spend 2 million dollars on some green project, should it be rolling out a recycling project --- or should it spend that money on something else that might be more effective / economical in benefiting the environment, say a sewer cleanup plant."
The costs vs benefits then need to be assessed carefully.
Maybe recycling glass costs too much for not so much benefit, and maybe the local power plant can burn cardboard and save trees, so roll out a cardboard reclaim and recycling project. Or just the reverse, and glass recycling would be a great benefit.
I'm not intending to make any statements about which is better, but rather that it's a very complicated question that does NOT have any simple answers.
Find a six pack of coke in glass bottles. Give one to some youngster who never saw them before. When you drink from a glass bottle, you only taste the drink. You can taste the plastic or aluminum which changes the taste of the drink. Don't know how often this happened, but how about lawsuits from cut lips from a chipped washed bottle that got past inspection?
FYI, it takes old glass to make new glass. It's been many years since I had the materials classes, but at that time about 30% of the "batch" was cullet, or old glass that was being melted down.
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