Since February 2010, Kansas City couple Zach Noland and his girlfriend Meghan Sundermeier have been attempting to live a zero-waste lifestyle. And to date they have been very successful. One of the easiest ways they have found to reduce their waste is to take their own glass jars and reusable cloth sacks to their local whole foods store. The couple simply fill the reusable containers with the products they need. They also buy their milk in glass bottles which can be returned and refilled.
The glass jars and cloth sacks also provide handy containers around the home. Noland’s cupboards hold cloth sacks and glass jars filled with dry goods and cereal. There are no cans, plastic bags or other packaging in sight. Glass containers are also reused in the refrigerator to hold leftovers. In a typical week, the couple produce less than a handful of waste which must be disposed of in the rubbish.
Noland and Sundermeier were inspired to try a zero-waste lifestyle by Béa Johnson who runs the Zero Waste Home blog. Johnson’s blog contains a wealth of tips and recipes for anyone interested in reducing their waste. They include buying in bulk, shopping at local farmers’ markets, and using natural cleaning products such as baking soda and vinegar.
Johnson believes that to successfully live a zero-waste lifestyle you need to follow the 4R’s approach: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle only as a last resort. Of these, Sundermeier believes refusing excess packaging is the most important: “You have to refuse. That is the most important strategy. Refuse, refuse, refuse.”
If you like to enjoy a hot drink on your journey to work in the morning, take a look at these stunning double-walled glass bottles. Aquaovo specifically thought of tea drinkers when developing their flask. Simply place your tea in the space under the lid, and add boiling water to the container. When you are ready for a fresh brew, just invert the bottle to mix the water with the tea leaves. Stylish, practical and brewed perfectly to your taste!
The double-wall of glass helps to insulate the liquids inside, keeping them warmer (or colder) for longer than containers made from other materials. The outer layer of glass stays at room temperature, ensuring the bottle is easy to hold and preventing condensation from forming. And as they are made of glass, the contents are not tainted by the packaging.
The bottles produced by Silodesign are designed more for the table. Cold drinks, hot sauces, or even soup can be stylishly served from these beautiful containers. And the contents will taste just as the chef intended!
The inventors of ‘muu’ cakes have rediscovered an art that might sound a little strange at first – cakes in jars. Unlike other pre-prepared cakes, muu cakes contain no chemical preservatives, artificial flavourings or additives. They are only made with traditional baking ingredients and rely on glass jars to keep the product fresh and ready to eat for up to six months.
The modern twist-off lids on muu cake jars create the perfect sweet treat for people on the move. The re-sealable lid means you don’t have to consume the entire treat in one sitting – you can have your cake and eat it too, whenever the mood takes you. There are also a range of flavours available from chocolate to lemon, and even a red wine cake!
The jars are extremely practical and, once you have eaten the cake, you can rinse out the jar and re-use it as a container for your own home-canned foods.
Want to bake a cake in a jar yourself? Check out our photo album and get inspired by some yummy cakes in glass jars!
Martin Kemp is Emeritus Professor in the History of Art at Trinity College, Oxford. A renowned figure in the world of art, he has just published a new book titled Christ to Coke: How Image Becomes Icon. The work examines 11 well-known images and explores how they have become iconic in around the world.
One of the best known is the glass Coke bottle which Kemp describes as a pop icon. Known as the ‘contour’ design, the bottle was originally created in 1915 in response to a Coca-Cola Company competition for a new bottle. The rules of the competition required a solution that: “…a person could recognise even if they felt it in the dark, and so shaped that, even if broken, a person could tell at a glance what it was.” The design has been so successful, Coke still uses it today.
Of all the packaging materials in the world, only glass makes the list of icons. For the full list, read the full story on the BBC News website.
J. D. Russo is a 14 year old student who believes that it is time to stop making people aware of the environment, and time to make them care instead. In this short, powerful video, Russo outlines why he believes that change needs to start with consumers, not legislation.
Jeff Scanlan is a magician by trade. But after reading about the great Harry Eng’ Impossible Bottles in 1996, Scanlan became fascinated. Eng was renown for his ability to insert large and unusual objects into ordinary glass bottles. Scanlan spent three years studying Eng’s methods and, in his words: “Breaking bottles and ruining many decks of cards.”
All the effort paid off and Scanlan is now creating his own range of Impossible Bottles. To date he has inserted trainers, tennis balls, and even an upside-down corkscrew in a bottle. The bottles are not heated, cooled, cut or formed around the object or manipulated in any way.
The results are quite astonishing and Scanlan’s creations are now commanding high prices. We’re not quite sure we’d have the patience to do this ourselves, but a Scanlan original would certainly be a conversation-piece in the Friends of Glass offices!
Gordon Ramsay is the latest chef to embrace recycled glass. Ramsay’s new Bread Street Kitchen in London will feature glass work surfaces made from recycled beer bottles. Known as decoran®, the product has been developed by German company, Indupart. decoran® is available in a range of contemporary colours including green, purple, and Ramsay’s beer-bottle black. It has good anti-staining properties and excellent durability.
The raw material for the product typically comes from the waste cullet of float glass manufacturers. The glass is melted and formed into standard 20 mm thick sheets which are then cooled in a controlled environment. Cooling moves the stresses in the glass to the edge of each panel, giving it stability.
While not a safety glass, the 20 mm thickness is enough to withstand even one of Gordon Ramsay’s colourful tirades! Indupart has also developed structuran® for external applications, mainly building cladding. It can also be used in street furniture and lighting devices as well as water features and exterior furniture.
Milo Cress is a ten-year old school boy from Vermont who is on a US-wide tour to encourage people to stop using disposable plastic drinking straws. The BeStrawFree campaign started after Milo learnt that 500 million disposable straws are used each day in the US. That’s enough to fill more than 127 school buses every day.
Many of the straws are placed in drinks automatically and it is this practice Milo is targeting first.
He is encouraging bars and restaurants to ask their customers if they want a straw before serving the drink. The campaign has taken Milo across the United Stateswhere he has addressed government panels and city councils.
The BeStrawFree website lists a number of alternatives to plastic straws including glass and disposable straws. Our favourite comes from GlassDharma who make a reusable straw from borosilicate glass. Borosilicate is the same glass that is used to make Pyrex coffee pots and dishes. GlassDharma is so convinced that their drinking straw is unbreakable in normal use that they offer a lifetime guarantee against breakage!
We simply admire the passion of this boy to really make a change, a difference.
An inspiration to many of us…
So, let’s make the change by starting to use glass straws instead! Or why not pass and recycle a bottle!
We always thought that a shrub was a small bush or tree. But it turns out that it is also a Persian word for a syrup that contains citrus juice and fruit. Camper English, a cocktail and spirits blogger at Alcademics, recently took a class in creating shrubs. It turns out they are very simple and easy to make!
You just need some sealable glass jars and a selection of berries, fruit, herbs and spices to fill them. (Check out our post on herb-infused vodkas for some flavour combination ideas.). Cover the contents of the jar with warm fruit- or wine-vinegar. Leave for a week, shaking now and again to disturb the fruit and allow the liquid to circulate.
After a week you strain the mixture and discard the fruit. Return the syrup to the jar, add sugar, seal and place it in the fridge for a week. The exact amount of sugar you will need depends on the fruits you have used so remember to taste! Don’t add too much – the mix will become a little sweeter as it matures in the fridge.
After a week you have the perfect syrup base for a cordial, or you can use your shrub as a mixer in cocktails. Strawberry shrub and champagne sounds like the perfect summer treat to us! As always, we’d love to see your flavour combinations and the results, so why not share them on the Friends of Glass Facebook page?
Over the summer we hope many of you have been gathering sea glass as you stroll along the beach. But how to display your collection? While we might not all have the patience and skills of Alison Goyette (see our story on Boston Sea Glass) to turn them into jewellery, it is easy to create a sea-glass mobile as you can see in this video from Martha Stewart.
You just need sea glass, pieces of driftwood, cement glue and some fishing line. You can also include other objects such as stones or beads.
Wrap the string around the sea glass and tie into a double knot. Secure with a dab of cement glue. Continue until you have a string of the desired length and then attach to a piece of driftwood. You can add pieces of driftwood to create branches for the mobile or just runall the lengths of sea glass off one branch.
Hang your creation in front of a window to illuminate the glass and it will also tinkle beautifully in a breeze. Don’t forget to share your creations on the Friends of Glass Facebook page!
Since February 2010, Kansas City couple Zach Noland and his girlfriend Meghan Sundermeier have been attempting to live a zero-waste lifestyle. And to date they have been very successful. One of the easiest ways they have found to reduce their waste is to take their own glass jars and reusable cloth sacks to their local whole foods store. The couple simply fill the reusable containers with the products they need. They also buy their milk in glass bottles which can be returned and refilled.
