With summer coming up it’s time to get ready to party and Heineken has a surprise in store for beer drinkers – glass beer bottles that light-up! Launched during Milan Design Week, the Heineken Ignite bottles have eight LED lights and a bunch of other technical wizardry attached to the bottom of the glass bottle.
All of the electronic components are contained in a 3D-printed housing about the size of a €2 coin. A wireless network transceiver with antenna and a microprocessor enable the glass bottles to flash in response to a data signal or the beat of the music in a nightclub or at a party. The glass bottle can detect various actions including cheering, drinking or sitting on the bar.
Only 200 of the glass Heineken Ignite bottles were released during Milan Design Week. The company says it has no plans to make them available commercially but consumer demand might just change their minds! If you’d like to be drinking from a high-tech glass bottle this year, why not let us know through the Friends of Glass Facebook page or tweet us @GlassFriendsEUR. We’ll pass on your requests to Heineken!
Picture: Some of the bottles that will be turned into a work of art at the Bottled Wishes exhibition in London this month
Friends of Glass invited 50 of the UK’s leading voices on building a more sustainable way of living to share their hopes for the future. Amongst the fantastic responses we received were contributions from sustainability advocates and TV presenters Lucy Siegle and Julia Bradbury. We also heard from campaigners on food waste, climate change and green energy including FoodCycle, WRAP, Slow Food, Greenpeace, 350.org, Ecotricity and Good Energy.
These contributions are now being turned into an art installation that features fused recycled glass bottles, each one containing a different wish for the future. The installation is due to be unveiled as the centre piece of our Bottled Wishes exhibition in London this Wednesday 24th April 2013.
Friends of Glass intends that the exhibition will highlight the 100% recyclable qualities of glass while promoting ideas for more sustainable solutions in all areas of life.
Rebecca Cocking, Head of Container Affairs at British Glass, the organisation behind this Friends of Glass campaign, said: “Glass is a healthy and sustainable material that has and will continue to stand the test of time. We wanted to create a window into what other things we would like to see as part of a more sustainable future and thus the Bottled Wishes concept was born.
“While many of the wishes are aspirational and ambitious, the key to success is to start with a clear goal. We hope in exhibiting the wishes, we will help inspire the action required to turn them into reality.”
The exhibition will run for one month at environmental charity Global Action Plan’s offices in Covent Garden, London. At the end of the exhibition the bottles will be auctioned with 100% of proceeds donated to clean water charity drop4drop.
You can also share your own wishes for the future on Twitter using the #bottledwishes hashtag. All wishes will be entered into a competition to win dinner for two at Galvin at Windows, with five pairs of viewing tickets for the spectacular new all-glass building The Shard for the lucky runners up. So tell us, what is your wish for the future?
Here at the Friends of Glass we are excited to welcome a new partner – i91422®. Sounds a strange name but look at the creative way they have used their name to ‘make’ iGlass!
The company chose glass for its water bottles because of its natural and recyclable properties.
i91422® specialises in the production of healthy, fashionable and informed-by-nature water tools, designed to provide modern individuals with direct and simple access to quality informed drinking water.
Do you want to join the Friends of Glass network too? Feel free to get in touch! Leave a comment or contact us through e-mail.
With a population of over 7 million and a land area of just 1,100 square kilometres, Hong Kong is the second most densely populated area in the world. Almost 7,000 people live in each square kilometre (km2) of land. That compares to 400/km2 in Europe’s most densely populated country – the Netherlands.
With so little land available, recycling plays an important part in dealing with Hong Kong’s daily output of waste. More than 150 tonnes of glass bottles enter the waste stream every single day.
To help establish a circular economy for waste glass, the Hong Kong government has proposed a mandatory producer responsibility scheme (PRS). The PRS will ensure all stakeholders in the glass supply chain share responsibility for recycling waste glass.
To promote the scheme, Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department (EPD) has organised a roving exhibition on glass recycling using the slogan ‘Let’s Join Hands to Turn Waste into a Resource’. Aimed at the general public, the exhibition includes examples of art glass, game booths and videos. There is also a glass recycling counter where people can hand-in rinsed glass bottles in return for a souvenir.
If you are in Hong Kong and you would like to visit the exhibition, check-out the exhibition schedule on the EPD website.
Recycling glass is cool, recycling glass is hot (literally, you need quite a few degrees to recycle glass), but above all: recycling glass is necessary. For you, for me, for our planet.
FEVE has been collecting data about glass recycling over the past few years. And as it turns out, Europe is doing pretty well on this subject. That’s why we’ve made a nice and clear infographic so you can see it with your own eyes. Because we hope you’re part of that 80% of European consumers who regularly recycle their glass bottles… And if you’re not, what are you waiting for?
PS: Make sure you check out the other nice stuff we have to offer you in our Friends of Glass Recycling Week, on Facebook or on Twitter.
We are delighted to welcome „Bracia Urbanek” to the Friends of Glass Family!
Bracia Urbanek is a Polish producer of fruits and vegetables preserves. This family company was established in 1984 by brothers Jacek and Andrzej Urbanek. Ever since the early beginning they have been using mainly glass packaging for most of their products. Up until today, despite the time and changing market trends, most of Urbanek’s assortment, which is directed to both retailers and HoReCa sector, is packed in glass jars.
Barbara Grzywacz, sales and marketing director for Urbanek company, explains us what her company believes in:
We are aware that glass is chemically neutral, does not interact with the product inside and allows to enjoy a full range of nutrition.Glass packaging is part of a healthy lifestyle, glass jars preserve the taste and vitamins, protect the product from the outside and are 100% recyclable. Thanks to glass packaging and the production method our customers receive the highest quality of natural products without any chemical preservatives and artificial coloring.
As part of their 2020 global outlook study, Swedish firm Innventia has surveyed consumers in India, Sweden and the US on their attitudes to packaging. Conducted in October 2012, the survey aimed to better understand what influences consumer behaviour when they are choosing packaged food.
When asked whether they avoid certain types of packaging materials, 71% of consumers in India named plastic while 22% said they avoided Styrofoam. In Sweden most consumers avoid aluminium and plastic (both 24%) and Styrofoam (23%). An average of 6% in each country said they avoided glass packaging – one of the lowest figures and similar to other natural materials such as paper/cardboard (4%) and wood (5%).
Asked if they felt bad about throwing away a plastic bottle they have just used, 89% of those surveyed in India said they agreed with this statement. In the US 73% of consumers agreed while in Sweden the figure was 63%.
As part of the survey consumers had to name the packaging material they thought was the least environmentally friendly. Swedish consumers overwhelmingly selected plastic (65%). In India the figure for plastic was also the highest with 61% selecting the material. In the US Styrofoam (57%) was seen as the least environmentally friendly with plastic (48%) in second place. Glass and steel were seen to be the greenest packaging materials with an average of just 13% of consumers in all three countries avoiding them.
The survey also asked consumers whether they worry that we consume too much packaging as a society. In India, 79% of those surveyed said that it concerned them to a very or rather large extent. Consumers in Sweden (63%) and the US (54%) agreed with this sentiment.
Innventia also surveyed consumer interest in improvements to food packaging. Most expressed a desire for packaging that could provide information on where the food came from, how far it had travelled and what it contains. In India 69% were very or rather interested in this concept. Consumers in Sweden (63%) and the US (55%) were also in favour.
For more information on the survey, please visit the Innventia website.
Assovetro, the Italian association of industrial glass producers recently held an event to promote its vision of the link between glass packaging and a green economy. Held at Eately, the temple of Italian food in Rome, the event included a roundtable discussion and a special dinner prepared by the Eataly chefs.
Assovetro launched a package of sustainability proposals including standardisation of glass recycling at the national level. Their proposal includes colour-sorted collection points; a clear, simple and effective regulatory framework; better administration; and simplified procedures.
“Glass recycling is the best example of sustainable economy,” explained Giuseppe Pastorino, President of the Glass Containers Producers section of Assovetro. “That is because glass is 100% reusable and maintains its original quality.”
The use of recycled glass to create new glass packaging has many benefits for the environment. It is also economically efficient – from 100 kilograms of scrap glass you can obtain the same amount of new glass. By contrast, using raw materials requires 120 kilograms of material to obtain 100 kg of new product. Less energy is used as the melting temperature of the scrap is lower than that required to melt raw materials. That results in less greenhouse gas emissions from energy savings.
In Italy, around 70% of glass is recovered and recycled. However, Assovetro would like to reach the 90-95% recycling rates achieved in other European countries such as Belgium.
When David Latimer added soil and a spiderwort plant to a disused glass sulphuric acid bottle in 1960, he could hardly have imagined that it would still be growing more than 50-years later. The plant was last watered in 1972 when Mr Latimer sealed the bottle as an experiment to see what would happen.
Over the past 40-odd years, the glass bottle has acted as a protective barrier, sealing in the nutrients and moisture. The bottle has become a perfect eco-system. As leaves die, they rot down to release nutrients back into the system and creating carbon dioxide in the process. Through photosynthesis, the plant converts the carbon dioxide into oxygen and adds moisture to the atmosphere.
The plant has grown to fill the entire bottle. Now in his eighties, Mr Latimer is weighing up whether to leave his garden-in-a-bottle to his children or the UK’s Royal Horticultural Society.
Almost all wine and spirit producers in the world utilise glass bottles for their products and have done for centuries. That’s because glass preserves the taste and flavour of the contents perfectly and adds class to these high-end products.
Two new products on the market couple beautiful glass bottles with innovative labelling and design. Leading New Zealand winery Marisco Vineyards has announced that its ‘Kings Series’ of fine wines will now be packaged in a glass bottle with a label which is screen-printed directly on to the bottle. This is a first for a New Zealand winemaker. The paperless labels make it simpler to reuse or recycle the bottles and are better for the environment.
One of the only super-premium rum makers in Asia is Phraya from Thailand. The company has launched a new Deep Matured Gold Rum – said to be the best in the world, in one of the most beautiful glass bottles we have ever seen. As well as featuring a striking shape, the glass bottle is finished with gilding which reflects the opulent character of the rum.
The bottle was made from flint glass at the Leeds (UK) factory of Allied Glass. The cuff is made of sheet steel which has been stamped to create the pattern, lacquered and then shaped to fit the bottle. We just hope the contents taste as good as the bottle looks!
While glass might have been around for centuries as packaging for wine, it is also turning up in some new and technologically advanced applications. Every year the CES show in Las Vegas unveils the latest technology and in 2013 it was glass that produced the most excitement! For the first time Corning showed off its bendable Willow Glass which should be gracing the front of smartphones from 2014.
In its thinnest applications, the glass can be just 0.5 mm thick. The glass will be used to optimise the touchscreens of mobile devices, and create bendable screens which can be applied to rounded surfaces such as walls. Corning expects to start mass production of the glass in the second half of 2013. The first products to feature the revolutionary Willow Glass should start to appear in early 2014.
With summer coming up it’s time to get ready to party and Heineken has a surprise in store for beer drinkers – glass beer bottles that light-up! Launched during Milan Design Week, the Heineken Ignite bottles have eight LED lights and a bunch of other technical wizardry attached to the bottom of the glass bottle.
