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.

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!

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.

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.

Made by Orangina Schweppes, the Oasis brand is the second most popular in France. And with its more than two million fans on Facebook, we are happy to count them among our true friend of glass circle!

The new glass bottle is sure to attract even more fans as they sample the taste and freshness that glass provides. And of course, the glass bottles can be recycled time and time again, making the fruity drink a healthy drink for the planet as well!

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

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

In these blogs, we often talk about how our lifestyles today will affect our lives tomorrow. Choosing sustainability before convenience, playgrounds instead of landfills, favoring glass over plastic, these are steps necessary to guaranteeing our future and conserving our planet for the next generations.

The United Nations World Water Day (1993-present) focuses on sustaining life by finding short and long-term solutions to ensure freshwater is in ready supply around the globe wherever it’s needed.  With one billion of the world’s population already living in hunger and thirst today and food and water resources under pressure, this year’s conference centers around reducing water wastage on an agricultural level (read more).

Download the UN-Water PDF: A Guide to UN-Water

Here are some ways you can reduce your water footprint: Save Water

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 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