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To be quite blunt, if you want to avoid plastic bottles, you're going to have to give up the carbinated drinks and get your water from the tap. Very few bottling companies use glass, because it's heavy and it breaks, which makes it difficult and expensive to transport. Make your own ice tea and store it in a fridge in a pitcher and take it on the road in a reusable metal canteen. If you're adventurous, you can make ginger ale in small quantities from scratch to get your daily dose of fizz. Honestly, we'd all be healthier if we stopped drinking that stuff anyway.
I know. Old post.
However the vast majority of the world uses glass bottles. They are 100% recyclable. In most places they are just washed, sanitized and refilled.
In the states you would pay a deposit when you bought the soda and then received a refund when you returned them or just an exchange if you bought more soda. The deposit went to the store. Not the government.
As recently as last year in south america you would buy a coke or pepsi for about 75 cents. If you brought your own bottle it only cost you about 12 cents. In Africa the full bottle was about 55 cents and the soda was about 5 cents.
Glass bottles 30 years ago were much thicker than the thin crappy ones they have these days and were much more resistant to breakage.
The move away from glass is another of those great Moments in the Environmentalist movement. Its made the government and its supporters plenty of money and introduced many more opportunities for taxation and regulatory oversite.
Over the years I have noticed that many drinks, excluding alcohol, are shifting from glass containers to plastic. Of course, pop has mostly come in a plastic bottle as long as I've been alive(I'm 25). I have been able to find some pop in a glass bottle. However, I notice some bottled teas aren't in glass bottles anymore. When I was younger, between ages 9-13, I was gaining an appreciation for tea and still drink it to this day. Back in the 90's, I could find Arizona Green Tea in a glass bottle. My mother would buy(and later I did too). Later on, Gold Peak Tea came along and it was in a glass(when it came out). Now it comes in a glass bottle. Personally, I liked the glass bottles better. I wonder what has gone on as far as glass goes.
Whenever anyone mentions plastic I ALWAYS think of the movie The Graduate! LOL:
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics
I know. Old post.
However the vast majority of the world uses glass bottles. They are 100% recyclable. In most places they are just washed, sanitized and refilled.
In the states you would pay a deposit when you bought the soda and then received a refund when you returned them or just an exchange if you bought more soda. The deposit went to the store. Not the government.
As recently as last year in south america you would buy a coke or pepsi for about 75 cents. If you brought your own bottle it only cost you about 12 cents. In Africa the full bottle was about 55 cents and the soda was about 5 cents.
Glass bottles 30 years ago were much thicker than the thin crappy ones they have these days and were much more resistant to breakage.
The move away from glass is another of those great Moments in the Environmentalist movement. Its made the government and its supporters plenty of money and introduced many more opportunities for taxation and regulatory oversite.
All of the major waste haulers in our area have stopped accepting glass in the recycling bins. The reason they gave was that it is no longer cost effective to recycle it.
All of the major waste haulers in our area have stopped accepting glass in the recycling bins. The reason they gave was that it is no longer cost effective to recycle it.
It isnt anymore because no one wants to buy the waste. Eveyone that uses glass wants clear glass and clear glass is virgin glass in general. Actually most glass is slightly tinted green by the iron in the sand. This is why coke bottles have that green tint. It is the cheapest sand to use to make the glass. Really pure glass sand is expensive and usually reserved for optics. Glass can be made clear by the addition of chemicals but it is a one time thing. It makes it difficult to recycle. in general soda bottles were the first incarnation of the glass. They were a little green. Then came bottles for vinegar and wine. They were generally darker green or light brown. Then came dark brown beer bottles.
After that it wasent good for bottle making anymore and was ground up into sand and used as filler material in bricks and things like concrete pavers or chimney liners.But by the time that glass got ground up it had been used 1000's of times. Not the single use of todays plastic soda bottles.
We have become a throw-away society. One reason is people are too lazy to use returnable bottles.
We are becoming one giant trash pile. Our oceans are now full of various sized pieces of plastic. We have small fish eating this micro plastic and right up the food chain it goes.
Who's at fault? The customer. Every time you buy any thing in a plastic container you support the use of plastic and the misuse that goes with it.
It's your world and you only get one of them.
The main driving force behind the adoption of PET is an environmental one, and it has to do with the weight of the bottles, which reduces their carbon footprint through savings in the transport chain.
Pity more drinks werent still in glass. milk, and soft drinks.. as glass is the only pure thing we have left... plastic containers leach into drinks etc contaminating them..We can still buy some soft drinks in glass but hardly any milk manufacturers use glass now.. its a pity.
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