Returnable bottles vs. recycling

I just moved to MI and can't stand not just being able to put my bottles in a recycling bin to be picked up, have to take them into a store to get my 10 cents back, I spend more in gas driving to the store to return them.

 

Depending on circumstances it might make sense. I remember in NJ into the 90's and maybe early Y2k, all of the bars had returnable bottles.

The beer truck dropped off the full ones & picked up the empties.

 

I think its important for people to understand the difference between recycle and reuse. Recycling is the act of reducing something back to raw material to make use of it in another finished product (whether a bottle becomes another bottle or a component of asphalt). Glass recycling reduces energy consumption by about 30% when compared to using virgin materials. More often than not glass is "down-cycled"; or made into a finished product comprised of low grade raw materials. Reuse, on the other hand, is taking an already finished product and using it again for the same or different purposes.

I could throw statistics around all day, but the fact is that reusing something reduces energy consumption by an incredible amount when compared to recycling or dumping in a landfill. Economically, it has been found to be a sustainable practice, as well. I understand that recycling is better than dumping, but we can do better; and not at an outrageous inconvenience to anyone. If we work within our communities to start a reuse culture, and stop the cycle of consumerism, we can begin to address some of the issues with our environment which our "throw away" culture has created.

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-reuse-environment-is-more-about-culture-than-technology/

 

Here in Germany both are done. For German beer most, if not all of the bottles are returnable. Buy a rack of 20 1/2 liter bottles and pay the deposit. Return and repeat. If I remember correctly the bottles usually get reused 5-7 times and then are recycled.

Beers bought in France go right to the recycle bag. They don't charge a deposit in France. For beers I buy in Belgium I keep and return for deposit for when I make my every 2 month trip to Arlon. For US beers bought on base it is straight to recycle.

The one thing I don't like about recycling in my town is glass is only picked up once every 4 weeks. Between beer, wine, salsa jars etc it starts to add up.

 

came here to say pretty much the same thing.

salsa jars, haha, awesome!

 

depends on the state/country...

 

Small breweries like Treehouse Brewery (and many others) only offers fills of their own bottles that you can re-use(refill) over and over again. I like that.

 

I have a cousin in NY who feels the same way- out to the curb it all goes.

I moved from NY to NJ in 1996, and it's so much easier here. We don't even pay a deposit, so my memory of those days of saving stacks of empties is starting to fade into oblivion. Not so much that I don't recall the guys checking every damn bottle when you returned them to make sure it was something they sold- God, what a pain that was!

 

Throw some US brewing industry-specific statistics around.

Shipping back dirty bottles, and cleaning those bottles at the brewery uses a lot of energy and a lot of water which must be heated to sterilize the bottles for reuse, and the waste water must be treated to remove label residue and strong cleaning agents.

And that does not take into consideration the added cost of warehousing the empties at retailers and distributors, nor the extra handling and labor involved at all 3 tiers. In addition, the true "refillable" bottles are more expensive than throw-aways, as are the traditional reusable cases, and unless both are returned and re-used numerous times, the brewery loses money on them.

The American consumer in general does not want to drink beer from obviously "used" bottles w/wear rings, from beat-up cases, nor do they want to be bothered returning the empties (as noted in a number of posts above).

 

You relocated it, I hope.

 

i'm paying a nickle per bottle or can. i'm gettin' my nickle back. LOL.

 

As a home brewer, I reuse bottles, mostly bombers (If you're gonna have only one beer...). However, only some bottles get reuse. The lack of standardization will doom any massive reuse program - quit using embossed, odd sized bottles for product differentiation. We should make a concerted effort to standardize bottle sizes with the EU, then the bulk of the bottles would be reuseable (Yes, I remember straining beer through my teeth to remove the cigarette butts with those cold pizza/warm beer college breakfasts)! The bulk of the American consumers will do what TV tells them to do. (Now ducking and covering.)

 

I was the same living in MI where it is a dime. I moved to Las Vegas and, by habit, saved pop and beer bottles. Of course they don't have a refund and I ended up looking like a fool.

 

The city in which I live, recently gave us recycling glass, yet expanded to numbers 1-7 recyclable plastic. Their reason? Not enough money in recycling glass...which, you know is the complete opposite reason for recycling in the first place...

 

We have single stream recycling so I just throw everything into a bag and out it goes. It's nice and convenient. It sucks paying a $0.05 deposit on every bottle, but it's not worth the spare change for me to haul dirty bottles back to the store and deal with all the hassle of rejected bottles (it's easy if you only drink Bud, but we all drink a lot of different stuff all purchased from different stores). If we actually reused the bottles I would have more incentive, but getting maybe $1.00 for hauling bottles off to get crushed?

 

I remember when I worked on the beer truck for a wholesaler in Trenton NJ. Miller and Coors "export" bottles would go on sale for like 10 a case so you would have bars order like 100 a cases and you know in like a week or two you were pulling all those empties back out of the basement. What a pain.

 

Depending on how all the numbers work out - something I honestly don't have an answer to - recycling could potentially be less efficient than returning the bottles for re-use. Instead of having to use massive amounts of energy to process the bottles and turn the result into something else, returning and reusing the bottles could potentially allow a brewery to simply clean the bottles and fill them up again.

Again, though, I don't know anything about the logistics behind either process and which one is ultimately more energy efficient and economically friendly. My gut says it would be reusing instead of recycling, but I can't back that up.

 

If that were the case how do you explain that every brewery in the US stopped using the "refillable" deposit bottles? The refillable bottle accounted for 75% of packaged beer sales half a century ago, and dwindled down to "0%" by 2007. Why would brewers drop a package that was both "energy efficient and economically friendly"?

 

JK, in a previous post it was stated: “Problem is, breweries and soda makers didn't switch to throwaways because they liked to waste resources, the switch happened because people didn't return the bottles in sufficient volume.”

You posted: “…unless both are returned and re-used numerous times, the brewery loses money on them.”

Do you have any statistics on the percentage of consumers who made the effort to actually return the refillable bottles? Are there any statistics on how many times an average refillable bottle was utilized?

It seems to me that if beer consumers were not adequately participating in the actual return of refillable bottles that the economics just are not there.

I think you post concerning Straub Brewing bears that out (“ …and trouble getting their empties back”)?

Cheers!