BLOG IN A BOTTLE

Waste from non-recyclable water containers is becoming a major issue, with a recent study showing that litter in the North Pacific Gyre has increased more than a hundred-fold in the past 40 years.  This week members of the European Parliament called on the European Union to seek more environmentally friendly alternatives for water, such as recyclable or refillable glass bottles.

Refilling glass bottles when you are at work or home is an excellent solution and will help to reduce the waste circulating in the world’s oceans. While any glass bottle with a resealable lid can be utilised, innovative companies are coming up with designs for refillable bottles that look attractive and can be tailored to the owner’s own personality. Like all glass, the bottles can be recycled at the end of their life and they are free of the Bisphenol-A (BPA) and other chemicals that are found in some packaging materials.

Flaska is a European company which sells refillable glass bottles. The company claims that their bottles are ‘programmed’ to change the structure of the water and make it taste like more spring water. Flaska’s bottles come in a protective sock made from either cotton or neoprene. Socks are available in different colours and patterns so you can personalise your bottle. The glass in a Flaska is thicker than that in normal bottles, making it more resistant to knocks and falls. You can become a fan on their Facebook page if you’d like to stay informed!

Tap is Terrific is another range of reusable glass bottles which is made by Faucet Face. They come with a BPA-free cap and are dishwasher safe. When you buy four of the bottles, Faucet Face donates a Biosand filter to a family without access to potable tap water. The filter eliminates around 90 to 95% of the impurities, bringing fresh clean water to remote communities around the world.

For the ultimate in personalised bottles, take a look at the range offered by Love Bottle. As well as being partially made from recycled glass, you can make the Love Bottle uniquely yours. Simply write or draw on the printed area of the bottle to personalise it. The Love Bottle also comes with a swing-top so you never lose the lid.

Do you use a refillable bottle at home, the gym or at work? How do you personalise yours? Why not share your creations, and your reasons for using reusable glass bottles at the Friends of Glass Facebook page.

Glass is already one of the most environmentally friendly packaging products available. It is made from natural raw materials and can be recycled over and over again. But glass manufacturers are actively seeking ways to reduce the environmental impact of glass even further. A key target is to reduce the weight of the empty glass container in order to reduce emissions during transport.

Beatson Clark, a UK-based glass packaging maker, has created a new lightweight 500 ml beer bottle which is almost 30% lighter than the company’s original bottle. As well as reducing the consumption of raw materials and energy during production, the new bottle also reduces production costs. Beatson Clark has designed the bottle with similar dimensions to the previous style, so breweries do not need to make costly changes to their bottling equipment. Designs can be customised to include an embossed company name, logo or other design.

The same lightweight glass can be applied to many other types of glass container including packaging for pharmaceuticals, food, and other beverages such as soft drinks. Many other glass container makers are developing similar products. Reaction from consumers to innovations in glass packaging has already proved to be positive.

Although the weight of glass packaging is an issue, the reality is that most glass is only transported short distances from the factory to the packaging plant. The same is true of recycled glass which is usually collected and processed locally. In some countries, particularly in Europe, recycling rates are extremely high.

The amount of recycled glass available has led Heinz-Glas of Germany to develop glass containers which are made of 100% recycled content. By using renewable energy sources, Heinz-Glass claims to have produced the first zero-emissions glass containers on a commercial scale.

Called New Age Glass, the recycled glass is melted in electric furnaces using energy provided by solar, wind and hydroelectric sources. These energy sources produce no carbon dioxide emissions, although some emissions come from the finishing processes required. By comparison, melting 100 tonnes of raw glass in a gas furnace produces around 81 tonnes of CO2, while melting the same amount of recycled glass in an electric furnace produces just 5 tonnes of CO2.

The physical and chemical properties of New Age Glass are similar to those of new glass in terms of safety, thermal properties, chemical and mechanical resistance, and recyclability. It is guaranteed for use as a packaging material for cosmetics, food and beverages.

The only way to tell the New Age Glass from other glass is the slight colour tint in the glass. There are also some micro-bubbles which are caused by the high viscosity of molten glass. Both colour and bubbles could be reduced, however, these would require the addition of chemicals. Heinz-Glas have therefore decided to keep the glass 100% recycled and pure.

These new products are just some examples of the lightweight glass and more environmentally friendly processes which are being developed by the glass container industry. It underscores the industry’s commitment to make an environmentally friendly product even better!

Parents with babies often have little time to spend preparing food for their youngsters and many rely on store-bought packaged food. But these products are often packed with preservatives to extend their shelf life.

For parents lucky enough to live in New York City, there is now an alternative: Farm to Baby NYC. Using fresh local and organic ingredients, Farm to Baby NYC prepares healthy fresh jars of baby food and home delivers them to its clients in the city.

Farm to Baby NYC only uses resealable glass containers for its baby products as glass has absolutely nothing to hide! Using glass also ensures the food is free of Bisphenol-A (BPA) and that the taste and quality of the baby food is not affected by the packaging. It alters nothing to the taste or vitamins it preserves. And that’s why it’s the purest packaging for everything.

Next time the company makes a delivery they collect the empty jars and reuse them again, avoiding the need for the packaging to be sent to landfill.

We believe that this might be the first home delivered baby food service in the world. But if you know of similar providers closer to home, why not let us know through the Friends of Glass Facebook page or tweet us at @GlassFriendsEUR.

And if you’re inspired to make your own baby food, the BabyCentre has some tips to get you started. Just remember to keep your baby healthy by packaging your results in pure natural glass!

For more, check out the Nothing is good for you website.

The days of people throwing reusable glass bottles into rubbish bins might be a thing of the past. Paul Ketz, who studies eco-design at the University of Cologne, has invented a collection ring – known in German as a Pfandring – which goes over public bins. Instead of throwing bottles into the bin, people place them in the ring where they can be easily accessed.

In many parts of Europe, a deposit is applied to the cost of reusable bottles when they are sold and it can only be recovered when the bottle is returned. Ketz designed the ring so that reusable bottles are not mixed in with general rubbish. Some people make a living collecting and returning the bottles, and Ketz wanted to make this as easy as possible and reduce the health risks for deposit collectors.

The collection ring was designed as part of Ketz’s university course, and has been developed in cooperation with the local Cologne waste disposal authority AWB. For AWB, the collection ring means both a cleaner city and reduced costs as the reusable glass does not need to be sorted from other rubbish.

With its simplicity and ease of use, the collection ring has already proved popular during six months of testing in Cologne. Ketz (and the Friends of Glass!) hopes it will be adopted by other cities.

Sunday 22 April will see more than a billion people around the world participate in Earth Day 2012. The aim is to mobilise the planet from the ground up and send out a message that the Earth won’t wait for governments to take action on climate change.

Organisers are asking people around the world to perform at least one green act on Earth Day. More than one billion individual green actions are expected. They range from simple acts, such as walking to the bottle bank and recycling your glass containers, to grand projects such as planting a new forest.

To learn more about Earth Day 2012 and how you can get involved, go to www.earthday.org/2012 and watch this video:

You can pledge your own action, simple or grand, via the Earth Day website. Don’t forget to share your action with the Friends of Glass on Facebook, or by tweeting us @GlassFriendsEUR!

More: Let’s Mobilize the Earth for Earth Day 2012 By Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network

On 26th March, FEVE published the latest numbers on glass recycling in Europe.

This is what it looks like:

Glass Recycling in Europe, 2010

In 2010, 68% of household glass in Europe was recycled.

This is what it represents:
- 68% is equal to 25 million glass bottles and jars.
- 20 out 25 million (80%) were recycled back into bottles and jars.
- 80% of household glass requires about 12 million tons of the planet’s natural resources (sand, limestone, soda ash) and releases 7 million tons of CO2 into our planet’s atmosphere to produce.
- 7 million tons of CO2 is approximately the same amount attributed to a small nation of cars on the road per year*.

Every 10% increase in recycled glass = a decrease of
-10% in sulfur dioxide (SO2)
-6% in nitrogen oxide (NOx)
-17% in carbon dioxide (CO2)
-2.5%°in electricity and natural gas
-6°C in furnace temperatures (during manufacturing process)
-9.5% in raw materials.
(Source: Glass Packaging Institute)

This is what it means:
These characteristics make glass a clear example to follow in the ambitious strategy of the European Commission to make the European Union a ‘resource efficient’ economy where recycling is the key factor to waste reduction and where waste is considered as a valuable resource.
(Conclusion of the Feve Study.)

*Calculated on 4 million people between ages 19 – 65 years, Switzerland:
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index/themen/01/02/blank/key/alter/gesamt.html

Trying to balance a healthy diet around local and seasonal produce can often be quite tricky.

If we have to rule out every food source that comes wrapped in environmentally-harmful packaging, whilst adhering to the World Health Organisation’s 5-a-Day Program encouraging us to eat a minimum of five fruit and vegetables per day, many of us are left juggling a cabbage, potato and apple throughout winter.

Playing on our idea of fast-food, SLOW FAST FOOD offers slow-to-perish, fast-to-eat food - in this case, fruit and vegetables.

As the brand name suggests, there’s more than meets the eye. Not only does the brand gently nudge us to re-evaluate our associations with fast-food by replacing a burger with a vegetable, the simple, all-glass design is an accolade to the natural, purity of each ingredient it contains.

This what they promise:
Combining fresh produce in a design traditionally used to conserve food, SLOW FAST FOOD offers seasonally cultivated fruit and vegetables, contained in hand-filled glass pots ready to be enjoyed now or later.

Enjoy fresh, seasonal produce all year-around.

The Facts:
Glass jars have been around since the 1800s but it wasn’t until the after 1900 that home canning was encouraged and seen as a way to provide better diets, preserve flavor, food longevity and reduce the cost of living. By the end of the century, the decline of the family farm, the low cost of commercially canned foods and the widespread use of freezers had made home canning more of a hobby than a habit.

The Trends:
In the new millennium, we have other things on our mind. With the growing concerns over global-warming, as well as our valid worries over food safety, the relationships between food, flavor, health, packaging and sustainability are now at the forefront of our thoughts.

A trend among consumers is emerging: the desire to live a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. This has been seen in the rapid rise of organic food and farming, the return to popularity of home-cooking and preserving, and an increasing awareness and interest in our foods’ sources and ingredients.

More and more of us are realizing that the future of our planet may very well depend on where we get our food, what we choose to eat and how we decide to store it.

The Research:
Commissioned by FEVE (the European Container Glass Federation), the InSites study asked over consumers in 17 countries across Europe what they thought about various packaging materials.
In a nutshell, the survey reveals:

-          65% of consumers prefer glass because it preserves taste,
-          63% perceive that it is safest health-wise,
-          50% say it is the most environmentally-friendly.

The same kind of survey was carried out in the States in 2006 with the same results:

'Glass is Life' Awareness Campaign, USA

Furthermore, glass is the only packaging material rated “GRAS” or “generally regarded as safe” by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.
(Newton Marketing & Research of Norman, Oklahoma)

Clearly, consumers agree that glass is their preferred packaging for consumer health and the environment.

Nutritious and Delicious
The InSites survey goes on to show that the preference for glass is particularly high when it comes to certain food and drink categories where flavor is everything, such as spirits, wines and beers. More than that, glass also preserves the natural aromas, tastes and textures, making it the perfect material to store fresh and perishable products as fruit juices, smoothies and tomato-based sauces.

Glass is the material of choice for chefs, in particular, Geir Skeie who knows that glass is a true food lover. The purity of glass ensures that food retains its great flavour.
WATCH THE VIDEO:

Recipes and Instructions
Why not give it a go? Here are some handy links to get you started:

Canning, The Epicurious Way
Canning Safely, Weck
Home Canning, Kaufmann Mercantile Blog
Meyer Lemon Marmalade Recipe, Kaufmann Mercantile Blog
How to Can, Fresh Preserving
Food in Jars Blog
Recipes, Saving the Season
Preserved Fruits and Sweetmeats, Jennie June’s American Cookery Book, by Jane Cunningham Croly. Google Books.
Kitchen Lighting Made From Weck Canning Jars, The Kitchn
Weck Canning Jars, Katy Elliot

Photo by: Dorling Kindersley/Getty Images

Let’s be honest – who really wants to talk about trash? We put it into bags, carefully place it outside our homes on the allocated day and, for most of us, that’s where it ends.

But for one lady that’s where it starts. Ms. April Lai lives in Hong Kong, where the seven million inhabitants produce a staggering 13,817 tons of garbage each day. Of the 6 million produced each year, barely any goes to recycling.

To give you an idea, in 2006 about 3,000 tons of glass waste was recovered, which came to about 2% of the glass waste generated in Hong Kong that year.

Whilst the government is slowly starting to put schemes into place to deal with this problem, Ms. Lai is spending her Thursdays and Saturdays sifting through rubbish at trash collection points in the city, gathering up all the glass she can find. With a tiny team of part-time drivers and volunteers, her nongovernmental organization, Green Glass Green, manages to deliver about two to three tons of glass to Tiostone Environmental each visit.

Founded in 2005, Tiostone’s factory is dedicated to transforming trash into paving stones and an essential component of those bricks is the glass Ms. Lai is tirelessly working to supply.

Tiostone Environmental by Bettina Wassener/The International Herald Tribune January 2012

Indeed, it is this very relationship between Green Glass Green and Tiostone that is rallying the local residents to take part in the city clean-up. Whilst Ms. Lai is fighting through endless red tape to obtain permission to place glass collection bins in public locations, residents around the city can be seen dropping off their bundles of glass empties for her to dispose of.

“When people show their support, it is so encouraging”, she says. Understandably so.

It no doubt seems Green Glass Green and Tiostone putting everything they have in the fight to keep the city clean. When programs to collect glass are met with indifference, such as the one set up by the government and Hong Kong hotel association in 2008 to retrieve glass waste from hotels, it is no doubt a delight to see people arriving with their empty jars and bottles.

Launch of the Glass Container Recycling ProgramNovember 2008

Certainly, the road ahead will not be an easy one for Ms. Lai and the founders of Tiostone. If waste loads continue to increase, an additional 400 hectares of land to develop new landfill sites to meet Hong Kong’s waste disposal needs up to 2030 (read more).  As Mr. Dixon Chan, Director of Tiostone, states, “Ms. Lai is doing a great job… but we need 1,000 Aprils”.

Fortunately, the outlook may not be as bleak as it seems:
“The fact that Green Glass Green, which began its collections 18 months ago, receives some government financing shows that the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department is starting to take glass recycling seriously,” Ms. Lai said.

There is hope yet. Thanks to Ms. Lai.

Visit Ms. Lai at GreenGlassGreen

With the millions of people using alarm clock every day, whom among us hasn’t been startled into consciousness by a strident, insistent beeping? And in those moments, don’t we all think there must be a better way?

First formally invented by Plato (427-347 BC), the ancient Greek philosopher, man-made wake-up calls have gone through various cycles of transformation in the history of our time on earth. When days were all about hunting and gathering, the dawn songs of the crowing cock or the tweeting bird were enough to get us out from under our fur blankets, but once we moved away from the sounds of nature, we had to come up with more ingenious and often more stressful methods to rouse us from our slumber.

From the klepsydra, the water-based contraption that Plato constructed, to the modern-day Clocky which rolls off the table and looks for a place to hide at the touch of the snooze button, most of our alert systems have revolved around rather painful ways of getting us into the day (read more).

But what if we tackled the problem from a different angle?

For Vera Wiedermann, whose DesignStudio focuses on current needs of society to develop solution-oriented objects that enrich our quality of life, ‘intercreativity and the product life circle become more important every day. By using one’́s knowledge for the development of new products, the designer upholds responsibility towards society and nature’.

Well, the torturous beeping certainly gave Ms. Wiedermann pause for thought, and it is her thought that now gives us the Dreamtime Clock. As with Plato’s klepsydra, the Dreamtime Clock is water-based, although that’s where all comparison ends.

Here, soft-coloured glass spheres are suspended from a single cord in an ethereal, eye-catching design, water is poured into one of the glass bowls, droplets silently fall from one bowl to another and the spheres rise or lower according to the weight of the water. Eventually one bowl rises to release a small, brass hammer that taps softly on the glass, releasing a soft, delicate chiming.

Gone are the days of waking up stressed and irritated. By using glass and other natural substances to create the gentler sounds, we can start our days on a much happier note.

Dreamtime – alarm clock from Vera Wiedermann on Vimeo.