[HN Gopher] Glass is the hidden gem in a carbon-neutral future
___________________________________________________________________
Glass is the hidden gem in a carbon-neutral future
Author : _Microft
Score : 102 points
Date : 2021-11-13 16:09 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| aj7 wrote:
| Glass bottles are heavy. QED.
| paulkrush wrote:
| They state in the article if the world 100% stops making new
| glass we will save 19 lbs of co2 per person from being emitted.
| 86m tons world wide per year. Stopping a 1/2 beef burger from
| being made will save 18 lbs of co2 equivalent from being
| released. So glass is not the place for a big greenhouse gas
| impact. What sucks is if I don't buy this big burger I will not
| stop it from being made. I will just make it cheaper for others
| to eat beef.
| speeder wrote:
| Meanwhile for years people used to say glass last forever and
| thus instead we should use biodegradable plastic...
| willvarfar wrote:
| I recall people in the UK saying in the 80s we should use
| plastic bags instead of paper to save the trees. But cordial
| was still sold in glass bottles with a deposit. The only
| negative sentiment I recall for glass was a belief that
| discarded bottles started forest fires and killed animals that
| crept into them but couldn't get back out.
| ouid wrote:
| When you say _people_ , who are you referring to? I have never
| heard anyone claim that.
| wlll wrote:
| I (from the uk) have never heard that personally.
| [deleted]
| gumby wrote:
| As was posted on HN a few weeks ago this seems to have been
| part of an advertising / propaganda effort by the plastics
| companies, alongside the idea of recyclable plastics.
| neltnerb wrote:
| What! Where did they say that! I've always been told to recycle
| glass because it's easy to make new glass from, is this a
| recent thing?
|
| Sounds like malicious advertising from people making PLA
| garbage, which I mean literally since "compostable plastic"
| rarely is without expensive industrial composting equipment
| (instead it contaminates the compost so you can't use it) and
| PLA (while theoretically recyclable) is not so in basically any
| curbside recycling anywhere.
|
| If you collect it special and find a specialty recycler it can
| be done, but it's hardly going to fall apart sitting in a
| landfill in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment.
| foobarian wrote:
| My understanding is that recycling glass is energy intensive
| to the point where it's not economical, leading recycling
| programs like in our local town to choose to dump the
| collected glass instead.
|
| The most effective recycling seems to be for aluminum due to
| high energy cost of converting the ore, and low cost of
| melting the metal.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| As I mentioned in another comment, most crushed mixed glass
| is used as landfill cap between the layers. It's not 'just'
| being trashed- the cap is an important function in modern
| waste management.
| neltnerb wrote:
| For sure aluminum recycling is more cost effective than
| glass recycling, but I've definitely never in my life heard
| the suggestion that it's better to literally put glass in
| landfills instead... that really sounds like the kind of
| topsy-turvy logic you get out of a company pushing plastic.
|
| Granted this is a biased source, but they claim that
| "Energy costs drop about 2-3% for every 10% cullet used in
| the manufacturing process," [1] so it really seems like in
| principle it should be less expensive to recycle it (by a
| little bit) and that if it's more costly than making it
| fresh it's due to logistics rather than any fundamental
| manufacturing cost.
|
| [1] https://www.gpi.org/glass-recycling-facts
| notatoad wrote:
| >That really sounds like the kind of topsy-turvy logic
| you get out of a company pushing plastic
|
| or just the topsy-turvy logic of a system that generally
| ignores the true cost of landfills. When throwing stuff
| out costs an amount that rounds to $0, systems will
| prioritize that.
| foobarian wrote:
| Yeah looks like fully recycled glass at best requires 30%
| less energy input than virgin glass. And the single-
| stream logistics are enough to make that uneconomical,
| unfortunately.
|
| Aluminum recycling energy input is 95% less than smelting
| - that is a very nice gain, meaning you get 20x the
| material for the same energy cost vs. 1.42x.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Glass bottles are also 10-20x heavier for capacity than
| aluminum or plastic bottles, like <60% content fraction
| vs >95%. Absolute amounts of that recycling energy inputs
| are apples and oranges, but with as much as 50% mass and
| 25% volume worth for delivered products having to be
| recovered in order for glass bottles to be recycled, or
| even reused, I can't picture microscopic oranges here.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Yes, glass and metal packaging are appropriate in
| different use cases and glass is much heavier than either
| plastic or metal. We're not really trying to find the one
| true packaging material right? Some are better than
| others depending on the context.
|
| Glass is pretty amazing material but weight is not where
| it holds an advantage, nor in tensile strength.
|
| Edit: Heck, even steel versus aluminum depends on the
| situation. Cans of stuff are usually steel still while
| beverages are almost always aluminum.
| brnt wrote:
| People often confuse money cost with environmental cost
| (at least it makes it easy to know who published the
| study ahem).
|
| Here in NL the monetary cost for melting glass is about
| 85% of sourcing new glass. So it's a small win. The
| envirnmental cost reduction is the raw materials saved.
|
| Beer bottles are almost all reused for a number of times
| though, greatly improving their environmental impact.
| Wish they would do the same for wine bottles.
| Natsu wrote:
| It might not be quite the same as recycling bottles, but I
| worked for a cut & tempering shop where we would recycle
| all of our waste glass. We recycled many tons of waste
| glass and were paid for it.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Glass degrades (physically) ultimately to inert pebbles or
| sand. Not sure who you were hearing this from, if you were, but
| it was a bogus argument.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I don't think this article is based in fact.
|
| Glass cannot be infinitely recycled, as they point out later on,
| glass containers can be recycled, but not windows. it gets more
| contaminates in. Also colour glass needs to be treated
| separately.
|
| They also seem to not understand that melting glass eats a
| fucktonne of power.
|
| From my reading of this:
| https://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/old/5703.pdf Using 100%
| recycled glass only reduces energy use from 4.3 megawatt hour per
| ton(for virgin glass) to 3.8mwhr per ton
|
| By far the biggest saving is to reuse the bottles.
|
| unless i've missed something, this article is pure horse shit.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Aluminum is the real winner for recycling. It is far more
| economic and energy efficient to recycle existing aluminum than
| it is to make new stuff from ores.
| comradesmith wrote:
| Sand mining is ecologically destructive.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I should clarify that I am not against recycling of glass. I
| actively do it (but then I live in Europe.
|
| I agree that we are using sand at an unsustainable rate.
|
| However I am disputing the assertion that the USA recycling
| its glass will make a material impact on climate change,
| compared to switching to nuclear/solar/other
| coryrc wrote:
| Depends on the kind of sand, that worry is more about sharp
| sand. I believe ocean sand can be used for glass?
| godelski wrote:
| While this is true, I'm not sure this statement alone is
| helpful to the discussion. I'm not sure that mining of any
| material is not ecologically destructive. So we have to
| compare _how_ destructive different materials are to gather
| and then probably full chain. Given the glass can be
| recycled, that's an advantage on full chain. Maybe someone
| knows more than me (not my field) but I'm willing to bet that
| glass is better in both amounts when compared to the popular
| alternative, plastic.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Not just the melting of the glass, but the collecting of the
| glass, sorting it, cleaning and crushing also take a lot of
| energy.
|
| Again, as the world is learning/has learned, recycling is not
| "free" and is much, much worse than (a) reducing the need in
| the first place and (b) reusing.
| thechao wrote:
| Reduce, reuse, and put in a giant pit so we know where to
| find it later.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| I worked at Pepsi in the 80s when we were still doing glass
| bottles. There was an entire line of guys that stood there all
| day and sorted glass bottle by soda. A 24 bottle tray with
| random bottles was grabbed at the head of the line and as it
| went down the line you grabbed the bottles for your stack,
| Pepsi, Mt. Dew, Diet Pepsi, and so on and put them in a 24
| bottle tray of just that flavor. Once you had a full pallet of
| trays you hit a buzzer and fork lift guy would swing by and
| grab that whole pallet.
|
| This went on all day, every day. If I recall there were 5 or 6
| guys on the line plus forklift guy. And life sucked if one guy
| was sick.
|
| Then, once all the bottles were sorted they were all put on the
| bottling line and washed, sterilized and refilled with soda.
|
| Plastic did away with a lot of jobs at the bottling plants.
| Maybe 20 people per plant? Then the lack of a need to wash and
| refill glass did away with all the "local" plants that were
| scattered all over the country to just a handful these days.
| dghughes wrote:
| Here in Canada in my small province there had been a "can ban"
| for many decades. The ban was mainly to protect the jobs of local
| bottling plants although the reason was spun that it was to be
| green.
|
| Then in May 2008 the ban ended. Up until then it was only glass
| even 750ml pop which seemed massive. Pepsi had twisted spiral
| 750ml bottles that seemed to weigh 10kg each.
|
| When the can ban ended the 355ml pop bottles were replaced with
| plastic pop bottles but the plastic were 590ml. The 750ml glass
| disappeared and were replaced with 2 litre p[plastic bottles.
|
| At my old work we had a pop machine in the lunch room it had
| glass bottles. It was obviously designed to have plastic bottles
| or cans. When the bottle fell it sounds like someone dropped a
| bag of hammers from two floor above you.
|
| I observed how my co-workers who were used to drinking 355ml of
| pop now bought 590ml bottles of pop. The lunchroom fridge was
| stuffed with half drunk plastic bottles. Over the next few weeks
| there were fewer and fewer half bottles. Then eventually just a
| few half drunk 590ml pop bottles in the fridge. People
| unknowingly had trained themselves to drink nearly double the
| amount of pop.
|
| I wish I had recorded it in more detail. It was a fascinating
| human behaviour event to observe.
| generalizations wrote:
| I read about a study where people were given soup to eat, in
| various quantities, and some were given bowls rigged to be
| bottomless. In general, they ate until the bowls were empty -
| except for the bottomless bowls, where they'd eat far more than
| any of the other groups.
|
| I'm drawing on a 15-20 year old memory, so that's IIRC.
| martingoodson wrote:
| This experiment was probably falsified.
| https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/08/20/did-
| that-b...
| robocat wrote:
| As I understand it, the sorting, cleaning and transportation of
| recycled glass is more costly (i.e. worse for the environment)
| than using virgin materials.
|
| In New Zealand AFAIK collected glass is crushed and added as sand
| to concrete (perhaps reducing logistics waste?):
| https://productspec.co.nz/media/f2ebqrwk/architects-booklet-...
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Here in California, the local landfill crushes the mixed-color
| glass and uses it as a cap on the day's waste to help keep
| things contained. It's an important function, and (IMO) a good
| use for the glass. I do believe that the sorted-clear glass is
| still valuable enough to be diverted back in to new production.
| _Microft wrote:
| Equating cost with environmental friendliness might not be the
| best thing to do because this exactly fails in systems where
| externalities are not priced in yet.
| robocat wrote:
| I agree.
|
| But the externalities of sorting/cleaning/transportation
| would also need to be measured.
|
| The article sort of mentions this, but overall it is a
| typically unbalanced "recycling is 100% good" and "More
| countries need to pass laws to reduce waste and eventually
| stop sending glass to landfill" without the balance of
| looking at the total waste of recycling versus using virgin
| material.
|
| Meanwhile, I think money is often a good proxy for
| environmental damage (especially as an individual), because
| the safest bet is to assume externalities are similar even
| for two very different choices.
| fencepost wrote:
| It's not a huge use, but in the US I believe ground recycled
| glass is spread over freshly painted road markings while
| they're wet so it bonds into the top.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I can't get the point of the article. I don't think we ever
| reached a point that we recycled plastic so many times that it
| started loosing its property. Most of the applications of plastic
| doesn't even require best grade plastic.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Have some relevant science! -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutectic_system
|
| Similar to this is metallic glass, which has the potential to be
| injection molded. If we can figure out Fe-based bulk metallic
| glass then a lot of problems will be solved.
| neltnerb wrote:
| In terms of recyclability, I don't think metallic glass has any
| advantage over polycrystalline metal.
|
| It's much stronger though.
| justinator wrote:
| Well if we can't recycle it does it break down into tiny
| particles that then become a part of the food chain? If the
| answer is no then maybe worth a look.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Huh? We use metal for all kinds of containers. Yes, I think
| it is better to use metal than plastic when possible (and
| we _can_ recycle it).
|
| Metallic glass and metal are both made from the same atoms.
| justinator wrote:
| Right, the line of thinking is there a material that has
| the advantages of glass (reusable) without the
| disadvantages(heavy, easy to break, questionable
| integrity) and without the disadvantages (environmental
| pollution).
|
| Sounds like aluminum would fill this niche to me,
| although that's energy intensive to produce.
| jagger27 wrote:
| What are the arguments against all beverages using those
| standardized reusable beer bottles? Why melt down perfectly good
| glass when it can be safely reused a solid dozen times before
| finally being recycled?
|
| I'm wondering how much glass bottles contribute to
| transportation-related emissions versus aluminum and plastic.
| ghaff wrote:
| Weight in transportation systems is probably one factor. I'd
| also observe that more and more mid-range to higher-end beers
| are shifting to cans. It used to be almost impossible to find
| canned beer (which we preferred for canoe camping) outside of
| the mass market BudMillCoors stuff.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| The lining material got better. Back in the day, canned beer
| tastes off. Today, that's not a factor.
|
| For canoe camping, I go bagged red wine or brandy. Keeps the
| weight down on the portage.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Glass bottles were very common in Germany, as there was a
| standing threat that a punitive deposit on single-use bottles
| would be introduced if the fraction of drinks sold in reusable
| bottles dropped too low.
|
| Once that happened (fraction dropped, punitive deposit was
| introduced, and thus the threat was gone), glass bottles mostly
| disappeared.
|
| This strongly indicates that there is some factor that makes
| them undesirable. My guess would be that the reverse logistics
| are so expensive that it doesn't make economical sense, which
| is also a good hint that it may not make sense ecologically
| either. Because you save the production of the bottles, but now
| you have to transport the heavy glass, twice, for each drink
| sold.
| simlan wrote:
| None of those bottles disappeared. Beer, juices etc are still
| very commonly sold in reusable glass bottles that re
| returned. What happened is that the discounters found the new
| system with deposits on plastics very appealing because it
| fit into there logistics better than offering glass bottled
| drinks. Also the remaining the plastic bottles normalized
| there use similar to glass bottles because they perceived
| waste production from those bottles was gone.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I think you'd have to measure that as calculating the total
| impact of each option is quite difficult to get accurate.
|
| Additionally some of the costs may be externalized in the
| case of pollution or trash from single use bottles.
| hinkley wrote:
| Glass and ceramic share something in common. When they are
| forged entirely of virgin material, they are more prone to
| deformation and stress fracturing. So you pulverize old pieces
| and add them into the mix prior to firing.
|
| If it's stronger, you can make it lighter and still meet safety
| margins. This makes preconsumer recycling virtually mandatory,
| and makes post consumer a more attractive option.
| depereo wrote:
| I can think of one - you do not know the heat/impact stress it
| has received when out of your custody, and don't want to be
| responsible for its unexpected shattering while your client is
| using it. Reforging adds some guarantees.
| jagger27 wrote:
| In Ontario we seem to manage this fairly well.
|
| https://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2013/06/28/the_averag.
| ..
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| It's too bad glass beer bottles seem to be going out of
| fashion these days in Ontario. Instead, people seem to be
| moving to aluminum cans. I miss the old days when you look
| at the bottom of a beer bottle and see a ring of wear
| because that glass had been recycled dozens of times (just
| washed and reused). You can see the ring of wear in this
| old bottle:
|
| https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jqHUfssta_Y/Tbt_aoiPgjI/AAAAAAAA
| B...
| mdtusz wrote:
| This is still visible on a fair bit of beer - Sleemans
| sticks out in memory the most as always having wear rings
| on their clear bottles.
| klyrs wrote:
| To answer GP's concern, they're x-rayed in reprocessing,
| which would detect unsound bottles.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Milk bottles Of my youth and glass bottles of Scotland's
| famous Irn Bru seemed to survive without causing death and
| injury to everyone coming close to one.
|
| I think you are being overly paranoid.
| Andrex wrote:
| The problem is, the population has expanded since then.
| Every new individual born is a new lawsuit vector. The
| scale of acceptable risk has been tipped towards higher
| safety standards, and I don't think we're putting that
| genie back in the bottle as the population on Earth
| continues to grow.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| I don't think the population argument makes sense. The
| number of lawsuits a company is exposed to will rise
| linearly with the number of bottles they sell, whereas
| their profits rise (due to fixed costs) more than
| linearly as a function of sales.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I mean, that you heard of? I'm not sure it's possible to
| know with certainty what the drawbacks of mass glass reuse
| are without trying it. Probably there won't be a major
| issue but these liability questions should probably be
| ironed out.
|
| The bigger question to be is the relative _current_ carbon
| intensity of reuse vs. disposable containers. Sure in a
| future where energy is generated without involving carbon,
| it may make sense to recycle glass more than we do today.
| But . . . that 's the future state, not the state today.
| _Microft wrote:
| The article says that in Europe over 50% of the mass of
| new glass is actually recycled glass already. For
| bottles, I think, the system we have in Germany proves
| that it can be done. The bottle type that I mentioned in
| another comment here already is being used for 50 years
| now and about 5 billion of these bottles were produced so
| far. I guess we have seen all of the problems already
| that could possibly arise from that.
| klyrs wrote:
| I think there's some legitimate concern. Specifically, beer
| is pressurized, where milk is not. It's an addressable
| concern (see jagger27's link), but you don't want a bottle
| exploding on an unwitting customer.
| WhisperingShiba wrote:
| Just make the bottles stronger. I understand there will
| be some game theoretic problems with that though, which
| seems to be a big problem right now...
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Game theoretic problems? Could you elaborate?
| klyrs wrote:
| Increasing the wall thickness of a pressure vessel has
| rapidly diminishing returns (especially in a brittle
| material like glass), increasing shipping weight for very
| little benefit. On the other hand, scanning for defects
| in reprocessing is easily automated with very low
| marginal costs.
| ordiel wrote:
| Of course you dont want that... In the US, where they will
| sue you for looking wrong at people or they will rally up a
| crowd in protest... In the rest of the world where people are
| normal that is not a problem. Specially considetong that if
| the glass is already fragile it will either crack during
| cleaning or while being transported. If the bottle can handle
| being clinking on the bands while being filled up, I am sure
| it can stand being on the fragile hands of some folks
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > In the rest of the world where people are normal that is
| not a problem.
|
| That seems overly broad. The rest of the world includes
| some pretty nasty places.
| _Microft wrote:
| This is not a nice comment and a rather reliable way to
| either get your comments downvoted, flagged or to get your
| account banned eventually. There are some guidelines for
| commenting linked in the footer of the page. For your
| convenience:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments
| chana_masala wrote:
| Could you specifically call out what is wrong? I fail to
| see it other than you being offended by the commenter's
| view
| spiderice wrote:
| > In the US, where they will sue you for looking wrong
|
| This is not true, and is clearly meant as a jab
|
| > In the rest of the world where people are normal
|
| Once again, a jab. Also "snarky" and "sneering", which
| are both mentioned in the HN commenting guidelines.
|
| If you rewrite the comment in question, removing the
| first couple of sentences, it is a great comment. The
| jabs are just unnecessary hyperbole.
|
| > Considering that if the glass is already fragile it
| will either crack during cleaning or while being
| transported. If the bottle can handle being clinking on
| the bands while being filled up, I am sure it can stand
| being on the fragile hands of some folks
| _Microft wrote:
| Generalizing to all US americans and implying that they
| are not 'normal' compared to the rest of the world is
| certainly not nice, is it? And I say that as someone who
| isn't even directly addressed by that statement.
| ordiel wrote:
| And the following is literally the first paragraph on the
| article:
|
| "Glass can be recycled infinitely without losing any of
| its properties. Why, then, are most countries -- with the
| exception of those in Europe "
|
| Thanks for serving as the perfect excample to the type of
| attitude I was referring to
| _Microft wrote:
| So far I thought you were talking about perceived higher
| risks because of liability in the US which you thought
| were unwarranted because a bottle that survives refilling
| would also survive normal handling by customers
| (+language that deterred from your point which I
| critized). Now I don't know what attitude you are talking
| about.
| ordiel wrote:
| A bit of internet collective wisdom borrowed from the
| highly reputable source of reddit:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/22j0n6/why_do
| _am...
|
| The attitude I am referring to is that of when people
| having it too good need to find something to complain
| about insted of brushing off a generalization (which as
| most stereotypes is based on factual bases)
|
| Based on the snarky-ness of the article favoring "the
| greatness" of European nations (compared to the rest of
| the world), maybe I should have said "not in the US,
| where 'most' will sue you for looking wrong at them"
| ordiel wrote:
| As a side not suporting my case, haven't you seen how
| many post here in HN talk about "patent trolls"; and why
| all (oh excuse me, most) of those are actually talking
| about America?
|
| Maybe "slide to unlock" rings a bell?
|
| You dont see those type of things in, lets say, Brazil or
| Mexico (where I am from) since in case the bottle has an
| anomaly you go back to the counter and they would just
| say... "Oh sorry about that, here is a new one", you
| know... Being civil, instead of keeping it as a "golden
| ticket" to take it to the court. Why, because people
| realizes that the coca-cola truck may have it a bump a
| bit too hard and that just life, we know it and we just
| go on with it...
| coryrc wrote:
| In the US, truth is a defense for libel. It would be
| correct to generalize North Koreans aren't normal due to
| shared trauma. Living in the US but having traveled
| overseas, the US seems to have its own traumas.
| spiderice wrote:
| This isn't a court of law. And legal definitions aren't
| super relevant in day to day conversation. You could say
| any country isn't "normal" compared to the rest of the
| world, and then find some "true" way of defending it.
| That doesn't make it nice though.
| coryrc wrote:
| Tone policing is used to reinforce the status quo. It's
| not nice to talk about the crimes someone is abetting;
| how many dead in Iraq due to the unnecessary invasion?
| The 40,000 US citizens who die every year from
| automobiles? The hundred thousand innocents dead because
| some people won't wear masks? It's certainly reasonable
| to suppose people of the unchallenged world superpower
| 1992-2019 are not normal.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| "Be kind. Don't be snarky."
|
| Tough to do since we are all so used to an internet where
| snark is the most common form of communication. But it's
| worth trying! I find being less snarky can actually do
| more than just make your comment "nicer:" it can actually
| affect your mindset in a way that I think is positive.
| _Microft wrote:
| We have something like that in Germany. For consumption at
| home, mineral water or carbonated lemonade beverages are
| usually available in standardized bottles [0] and bottle crates
| [1] (which can be conveniently stacked). The bottles can be
| refilled up to 50 times until they need to be taken out of the
| cycle. You can usually return them at shops that sell them,
| even if you haven't bought them at this exact shop. There is a
| (small) deposit per bottle and crate that incentivizes
| returning them.
|
| [0] (german) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normbrunnenflasche
|
| [1] (german) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getr%C3%A4nkekiste
| chana_masala wrote:
| Wie weist man wie viele Male eine Flasche schon genutzt wird?
| coryrc wrote:
| I would assume there isn't a magic number which can't be
| exceeded, but something which can be observed usually
| happens around that time, i.e. the glass becomes visibly
| cloudy and it's undesirable to sell new product in them, as
| opposed to invisible cracks in carbon fiber composites
| which require ultrasound to detect.
| _Microft wrote:
| Parent comment said: _" How does one tell how often a
| bottle was used already?"_
|
| I don't think one can tell. How I would go about it:
| calculate the average number of reuse by knowing how many
| bottles my factory has filled and how many new bottles it
| needed to introduce/throw out for that. I would also sort
| out bottles only depending on wear and tear. As long as the
| bottle is good enough, reuse it one more time.
| dghughes wrote:
| Where I live we had glass beverage bottles until 2008 it
| was common to see wear marks on the bottles. Both for
| beer and pop bottles it was obvious they weren't new some
| even had chips.
| 0xQSL wrote:
| There are small bulges on the bottles which get worn away
| and allow making a rough estimate of uses. The german
| wikipedia link above has a a little bit more detailed
| explanation
| ingas wrote:
| Very interesting.
|
| It was absolutely the same in Soviet Union.
|
| I still remember formula from my childhood: 3 empty bottles
| (10 kopeks each) + 3 kopeks = 1 full bottle of lemonade (33
| kopeks).
|
| I think it was a good thing, less glass garbage at least.
|
| > You usually return them at shops that sell them, even if
| you haven't bought them at this exact shop.
|
| It seems that such things needs some central regulation, they
| did not survive in pure capitalism
| dkarp wrote:
| I liked this system a lot when I lived in Germany. Although
| living in a 4th floor apartment without an elevator, buying
| crates of heavy duty glass bottles was a bit of a drag
| compared with cans.
|
| The bottles are great to drink out of though and, since they
| have real redeemable value, you don't see empty bottles
| littering the street.
| nickkell wrote:
| There are companies like flaschenpost now that deliver the
| bottles and collect them when they're empty.
| citruscomputing wrote:
| Can't help but wonder... You're supposed to reduce, reuse,
| recycle, in that order. Could we standardize a few glass
| container shapes, and provide easy ways to return them for re-
| use, rather than spending the energy breaking them down and
| melting them back into the same shapes again? I would be fine
| with all my bottled drinks coming in just a few shapes.
| qw wrote:
| Over 90% of bottles sold in Norway are returned to be recycled,
| and most of them probably go through automatic machines in the
| shops.
|
| Norway and other countries have a deposit system where you pay
| extra per bottle, and then get the money back when you return
| them. Places that sell these products are required to accept
| any bottle that their customers bring them, so most of them
| want to use these automatic machines to avoid hiring extra
| staff.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI7OldXuq7c
|
| These machines have existed since the 70s, but the modern
| machines are of course much more intelligent than the early
| models. They used to accept glass bottles too, but they are not
| part of this system anymore. (glass is recycled separately)
|
| Tomra is one of the larger manufacturers:
|
| https://www.tomra.com/en/collection/reverse-vending
| smallnamespace wrote:
| Does the melting process need to run nonstop? If not, you can
| use cheap off-peak renewables for it too.
| kortex wrote:
| Currently yes. There's a lot of heat capacity to the furnaces
| so a cold start requires a lot of heat to get to nominal.
| That's not to say one couldn't be designed in such a way that
| it can be set to idle without losing too much heat. It's
| probably much easier to do that if it's electric vs nat gas.
| hervature wrote:
| I can't tell if this is satire. We used to do exactly this with
| milk bottles. From [1]:
|
| "In 1975, 94% of milk in the UK was in glass bottles, but as of
| 2012 this number was down to 4%."
|
| The reality is that plastic is so much cheaper that people balk
| at the cost of recycling exactly like the price of humanely
| treated chicken eggs even if they want to do the right thing.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_milk_bottle
| legulere wrote:
| One use for recycled glass is insulation in the form of foam
| glass. Another win for the environment.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| as a treat i will occasionally let my boys get a "mexican coke",
| which is coke from mexico that comes in a real glass bottle and
| has real sugar, rather than corn syrup
|
| my oldest asked why, since it tastes so much better and feels so
| much nicer to hold glass, we don't have this style of coke here
|
| well, son, we are too rich to afford that
| brandonmenc wrote:
| > it tastes so much better
|
| Disagree.
|
| I know I'm in the minority, but I prefer the mouthfeel of corn
| syrup or artificial sweetener and I find that real sugar is way
| too sweet. I mean, I'll still drink it - I just think it's way
| overrated.
|
| I wonder if I'll ever meet anyone who agrees.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Actually I have read something about it but I can't find the
| source anymore. From memory : More than half of people tested
| in a blind test could not make any difference between mexican
| coke and regular coke. The fact that it uses (or used to ,
| can't remember) saccharine instead of corn syrup does make much
| difference as both decompose in a mix of fructose and glucose.
| Mexican coke had a bit more fructose that glucose but both are
| very simple form of sugar and science has not been able to
| establish than one is better than the other for your health. It
| did establish that simple sugars are bad a bad diet though.
| fencepost wrote:
| If the big factor for you is sugar vs corn syrup, Pepsi has you
| covered year-round for some products with "Pepsi Throwback" and
| "Mountain Dew Throwback" though they may have changed the
| branding. The 12-can cases of them will have either a script-
| style logo or a retro design.
|
| On a more seasonal basis I believe both Coke and Pepsi do
| "kosher for Passover" versions with cane sugar that may be
| available in your area.
| alex_young wrote:
| The bottles you're drinking out of may actually be reused too.
| We used to do the same thing in the US, but we shipped all of
| the equipment to Mexico when we 'upgraded' to plastic.
| lhorie wrote:
| These days, the story is a bit more complicated. Not all
| Mexican coke is made with sugar anymore[0]
|
| > In 2013, a Mexican Coca-Cola bottler announced it would stop
| using cane sugar in favor of glucose-fructose syrup. It later
| clarified this change would not affect those bottles
| specifically exported to the United States as "Coca-Cola
| Nostalgia" products.
|
| > A scientific analysis of Mexican Coke found no sucrose
| (standard sugar), but instead found total fructose and glucose
| levels similar to other soft drinks sweetened with high-
| fructose corn syrup, though in different ratios.
|
| The shift to plastic, as I understand, mostly has to do with
| freight economics: glass is heavier and more fragile.
|
| Personally, I wouldn't mind a third alternate consumption
| model: fill your own container. Many places already have
| fountain drink machines. It's really not that big of a stretch
| to allow reusable bottles there
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Coke
| megablast wrote:
| Soda stream.
| alsobrsp wrote:
| > The shift to plastic, as I understand, mostly has to do
| with freight economics: glass is heavier and more fragile.
|
| Having tried to do online pasta sauce, I can confirm glass is
| expensive to ship. 6 jars cost us $30USD to ship and some
| would break. We insured the shipment and made more on the
| broken reships than a normal sale.
| nielsbot wrote:
| What about a home carbonator and cola syrup?
| AYBABTME wrote:
| How about not drinking pop? I know a "just change your
| behaviour" response isn't fashionable, but in the case of
| pop... it's a completely harmful and unnecessary product.
| a_lost_needle wrote:
| How about enjoying life? I weigh in at a 130lbs at 5'9",
| and have the body and skin of a woman much younger.
| Moderation, not abstinence, is where the happiest life
| is.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| What are you going to do when she asks for it back?
| sigstoat wrote:
| necessity is a wonderful sounding criteria when being
| applied to things you don't care for, and ghastly when
| applied to things you enjoy.
|
| we could sooner justify the elimination of all alcohol
| products on these grounds than soda. sugary beverages
| just have calories; alcohol has got the calories along
| with liver damage, alcoholism, drunk driving etc.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| I'm not suggesting banning anything, or taking any
| position as to whether pop should or shouldn't be banned.
| wincy wrote:
| Also if horribly unhealthy sugary drinks were banned, who
| would sponsor professional sports? They've already banned
| the tobacco companies from sponsoring them like in the
| good old days.
| aj7 wrote:
| Try buying the syrup. Report back.
| a_lost_needle wrote:
| I love it, I don't like pop often, but I like soda water
| all of the time. And Pepsi came out with syrup for home
| use, so I just keep that in the cupboard and on weekends
| watching a movie or something, I'll throw in some syrup.
| Easy peasy, and I can make it as sweet as I want.
| kortex wrote:
| I'm surprised to read in these comments that bottle reuse at the
| commercial scale is quite common in some areas.
|
| Here in NY we recycle glass but it's primarily through single
| stream recycling or via bottle deposit machines, which I believe
| both smash the bottles and mix the streams. I presume this is
| because bins of broken glass are significantly higher bulk
| density than in-tact bottles.
|
| Seems like this boils down to a logistics and handling problem.
|
| I think we are reaching a point where it makes sense for an "ISO
| Container" but smaller scale, for ease of automated logistics.
| Something basically like a milk crate but better for automated
| stacking, shuttling along conveyers, and un/loading by robots. It
| would be an interesting way to come full-circle for glass bottle
| reuse.
|
| Edit: did some digging and I guess Euro boxes are a thing.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_container
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systainer
| masklinn wrote:
| > I'm surprised to read in these comments that bottle reuse at
| the commercial scale is quite common in some areas.
|
| In euro beer country, bottle deposits are super common even on
| table beer (your basic lager), there's automated sorting
| machines which work on crates (24 bottles, of either 25cl or
| 33cl) as well as singles and spits out a barcoded ticket you
| redeem at the till, usually using it to pay for the next crate.
| CephalopodMD wrote:
| It takes a lot of gas to 1. get glass to a recycler and 2. Ship
| that recycled material to bottlers, stores, etc. It's not really
| a panacea for that reason.
| [deleted]
| hinkley wrote:
| When I was a child you exchanged the coke bottles at the
| grocery store. This decreases the footprint of the glass
| because you were going to the store anyway. If the distributor
| also transports the empties back on the same vehicle, then the
| footprint is mostly down to the production side - a bottle of
| Coke costs what a bottle Coke costs.
| stormbrew wrote:
| A heavy truck uses more gas than a light one. It's never free
| to move heavy things around, it's just another externality.
| There's certainly some economy of scale to having the grocery
| store do the moving instead of individually owned cars doing
| 'small' (on an industrial scale) runs to depots, but it's
| really pretty hard to account for.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| Still a helluvalot better than just burying that glass in
| landfills. Requires gas to get it there as well, yaknow.
| endisneigh wrote:
| a carbon neutral future will never come as long as wealth
| inequality exists at the levels they're currently at.
|
| all carbon negative or neutral actions will disproportionally
| harm the poor and middle class who will use political power in
| order to prevent said changes.
|
| i'd love to be wrong, but the evidence is there.
|
| reusing glass, though is environmentally friendly, would
| drastically increase the price of beverages. it's not going to
| happen at scale.
| 14 wrote:
| With all the glass being thrown away for some reason the concrete
| industry came to my mind. Made me wonder if crushed glass could
| be used in concrete since glass is essential sand? I know
| concrete needs a specific type or sand and maybe glass would be a
| no go for cement but it popped in my mind and has me wondering
| what we could replace the sand with. Also the main issue I see
| with glass is it is at least twice as heavy. So the carbon
| emissions savings would need to offset the transportation
| emissions.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Another comment mentions this is done in New Zealand. It
| appears adding glass to concrete increases durability, while
| adding plastic or rubber decreases durability (sidenote: adding
| rubber to asphalt increases durability of tarmac/road surfaces,
| while reducing maintenance costs and road noise).
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09500...
|
| http://asphaltmagazine.com/asphalt-rubber-pavement-moves-eas...
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