Wither Thou Goest, Glass?

In glass is class...

As a young lad back way up North, many a bottling beer run was done on the weekend. Going door to door asking people if they had any beer bottles. Sunday was a good time to go. If the guys were lazy enough they'd just let us have their 2-4s and that was a good chunk of change. As kids we had to have the motivating and strength to take each of those bottles, 10 cents a piece, up to the vendor to make some quick bucks. 2 kids if you got two 2-4s between the two of you.. man that was nearly 10 clams!

I still prefer them by far. Look, nostalgia, so forth. Don't like their weight or the space they take up while I am transporting, but it's a minor beef.

I even preferred soda in bottles by far back in the day.

I kind of find it hard that glass beer bottles could be eventually on the decline. But then who knows?

 

My preferred vessel for beer is glass. I only purchase canned beer if it's not available in glass. Not sure about recycling glass but I've read many articles about the harm that is done to environment when bauxite is extracted from the earth. I know that there are arguments from both sides, glass versus can, but I prefer glass as I believe that it does the least amount of damage to our planet.
Honestly, I don't believe glass will ever disappear from the beer market as breweries will continue to bottle their beers, especially the higher end beers.

 

Well since I did about 7 years working in a glass bottle factory, doing everything from greasing the machines to customer service and shift supervision I can shed a little light here, The time was generally before the mandatory deposit on all glass bottles (except refillable) Glass is composed of mostly silicon (sand), the most abundant mineral on the planet, so raw materials are really really really cheap. There are generally three types for large scale production, Flint (clear) Amber (brown) and Green. The vast majority of the cost of making glass is the energy used to melt the sand so large scale producers can deliver cheap glass due to the efficiency of their size, that's why you don't see small glass bottle factories. Now let's look at recycling, since the raw materials to make glass are damn cheap and the cost of infrastructure of delivery of those materials is also very cheap recycling has a very large hurdle to jump in order to make it economically reasonable. Plus you can't simply crush all the bottles up and remelt them, they need to be sorted by color and cleaned so there is no metal contamination. Now I admit the littering part of the equation has a lot of pull to make recycling attractive, but imagine if instead of shipping all that glass back to the factory (at enormous expense) small regional centers could be created to crush it all up and use the stuff locally or ever dispose of it in environmentally good terms . It makes a great addition to asphalt or just use as fill dirt. Just my two cents

 

I may have to will my liver to you. I hope it CAN still do its job when the time comes.

 

Yes, except that glass is once again competing with abundant and really really really cheap materials that would otherwise be asphalt additions and fill dirt.

I wonder.....pure speculation here.... there a groups and gov't support for building coral reefs and fish habitats. They typically clean and sink old ships off-shore to create a stable base for corals, but it's not cheap. I wonder if they could safely use glass bottles as a base for reef-building. The trick would be keeping the glass contained or far enough off-shore to avoid shards of sharp glass washing up on beaches, but with time the ocean does a good job of grinding down the sharp edges on glass (e.g. sea-glass)

 

By the time any glass got to the beach it would be rounded and people would pick it up for souvenirs

 

Local ocean currents might be a factor in some areas, but yeah that's what I was thinking. I'm imagining a simple sturdy submerged cage to hold bottles/glass in place on the ocean floor until coral grows around it. If a few pieces of glass escape the cage, the ocean tumbles them smooth and harmless.

 

Randy it seems to me that something similar to the 'chicken wire' they use to create crushed rock retaining walls that you sometimes see on the sides of roads/highways would function well here.

Sounds like you have a good idea that you can float to the appropriate authorities. Maybe you will win a Nobel prize here!?!

Cheers!

Edit: On second thought maybe the corrosion of the wire in the salt water could be a problem?

 

Glass is probably the least likely suspect to use in that way. It is the expense of moving heavy glass that makes it more attractive to use it in local fill versus sending long distances to make new glass. The amount of glass needed for reef building and the cost to move it would be immense.

 

Yeah what do you know about recycling
Cheers Dave

 

Still learning though Cheers, Greg!

 

There are many glass recycling centers in coastal cities and reef-building programs along the entire eastern US seaboard. Loading boat or barge to go a few miles off-shore doesn't seem like a long distance. Obviously, non-coastal areas would be better off using it as local fill or other local use.

As you know, the problem with glass recycling is it competes head-to-head with very low-cost material markets (e.g. raw silica sand, fill dirt, asphalt aggregate, road base, etc.). I don't foresee those markets becoming less competitive for glass. I do not foresee any novel technological efficiencies in collection, sorting, and transportation suddenly making recycled glass more cost competitive. Gov't subsidies is an option, but so fraught with potential mismanagement that it's an understandably tough pill for many to swallow. I think better solutions will come from niche uses outside of the traditional raw materials markets. My reef idea is totally unresearched and admittedly might be stupid, but it is an idea where the value of recycled glass could be less dependant on competing directly with traditional materials markets.

 

I can't imagine it would be cheaper than clean fill on land in the communities where it presently resides. If it works I am all for it. Hard to imagine it would be cheaper than hauling an old boat out there, or a barge of old trucks, but I am not an expert on that end of things so I will leave it here