BLOG IN A BOTTLE

It’s summertime again and that means long warm evenings on the balcony with nice company and a refreshing drink. What better way to celebrate the alfresco life than with your own herb-infused vodkas?

They are very easy to make. You just need good quality vodka, clean and dry airtight glass jars or bottles, and your choice of herbs and fruits to flavour the vodka. Simply pour the vodka into the glass container and add a few stems of your chosen flavouring (you can use more than one!), seal the lid and place in the freezer for a few days to infuse. Pour over ice and serve.

Thanks to Ashley English at Design Change for this tip. Why not add your favourite flavour combinations to the Friends of Glass recipe page?

Do you share the same memories as ours that no childhood breakfast table was ever complete without a glass bottle of milk? Yummy.

Although glass milk bottles are still an important part of the morning ritual, news from the UK is that the government there is calling for better recyclability of plastic milk bottles. Good news, it would seem. But some packagers and producers aren’t so happy about it.

The plans call for an increase in the recycled content of plastic milk bottles, in the form of recycled HDPE (rHDPE) pellets, from 10% to 30% by 2015. Thing is, these pellets give the plastic bottles a green hue, according to a research report from WRAP (the Waste & Reductions Action Plan – their website is worth a visit).

This is because the green bottle caps ‘contaminate’ the rHDPE-bottle, making it all greeny. And the only greeny things we like at the breakfast table are apples.

We’re big believers in recyclability, but in a type of recyclability that is more cradle-to-cradle instead of cradle-to-grave.

A cradle-to-cradle recycling system means that a packaging material – just like glass – can pretty much be recycled as many times as possible, and not just once (the cradle-to-grave system).

The good news is that Europe is getting better at recycling glass bottles. 62% of glass in Europe is collected for recycling; 97% of that is actually recycled.

Via: LetsRecycle.com

In an effort to get folk to drink less bottled water (and reduce waste in the process), a water utility company in Paris has opened a new drinking fountain dispensing still and fizzy water.

The water comes direct from the tap, but is then chilled and injected with bubbles. Lovely bubbles. It’s the first public water fountain in France that does so.

According to the BBC, the average Frenchman drinks around 28 gallons (around 105 litres) of sparkling water every year – the vast majority of which is sold in bottles which are thrown away.

From the BBC:

The French are the eighth biggest consumers of bottled water in the world, last year producing more than 262,000 tons of plastic waste. Eau de Paris say their public supply of water is safe and environmentally friendly. And the best bit of all — it’s free! Even with the fizz.

Via: BBC and Marketplace

Glass bottle: good for the wine (and for you)

Wine in glass bottles stays fresher for longer. So says a study conducted by the Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences in Bordeaux.

Some retailers in the UK are increasing the amount of plastic wine bottles, claiming that the contents can be stored for as long as a year.

Not so, says the study, which says that wine stored in polyethylene bottles starts to oxidize within 6 months. Good news if you like to drink vinegar. Bad news if you don’t.

Further evidence in the study revealed that wine stayed far fresher in glass bottles, particularly red wine.

Scientists tested both red and white Bordeaux wines, which were packaged in a variety of glass, PET and bag-in-box packaging. After different intervals, they tested the level of oxygen, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide in the wine, as well as taste and colour intensity.

There was little or no change to these levels in the glass-bottled wine, but noticeable changes were found in the plastic and boxed wine.

Says spokesman Rimy Ghidossi:

“A lot of contradictory information has been circulating in recent months regarding different packaging solutions suitable for wines.

‘It is now necessary to establish the truth, based on scientific information and quantitative data, to determine the legitimacy of each package, as its main function is to preserve the flavour and characteristics of its content.”

There you have it. Glass is good. For wine, as well.

Via the Mail Online

Spanish water company Veri has teamed up with the World Wildlife Fund, making a series of limited edition glass water bottles, called ‘Natura’.

Designed by Alex Gallimer, the range includes four unique designs, each representing a season. Money raised through sales will go towards conservation projects in the Pyraneese, where Veri water originates.

The bottle for Spring features several types of butterflies which are indigenous to the region.

Researchers in Antarctica have discovered 4 crates of glass whisky and brandy bottles left there by explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1908. Still full. Priorities, gents?

The New Zealand researches found the booty in a hut which Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott built during their 1907 and 1909 attempt to reach the South Pole, which was unsuccessful. Possibly because they didn’t drink the whisky, known by many to be a grand enabler (though not proven).

Whisky producers Whyte and Mackay will be analysing the grog – still perfectly preserved in the glass bottles – in an attempt to try and reproduce it.

More on Shackleton here.

Via DeMorgen (in Flemish).

Plastiki, the innovative catamaran made of 12,000 plastic bottles which we first reported on back in September 2008, has now begun its ambitious 100-day journey from San Francisco to Sydney.

Lead by Brit adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild, the Plastiki and crew aim to witness some of the most devastating waste accumulation on our planet.

You can follow the expedition every step of the way:

• On Twitter
• YouTube
• Facebook
• On the Plastiki Website

Here’s one of the first on-board video reports:

The Plastiki Philosophy is all about recognizing that waste is a fundamental design flaw (it does not appear in nature).  It’s about re-thinking waste as a resource. Hence the vessel has been built with waste – the very same plastic mass that clogs our oceans in the Pacific Garbage Patch.

It is estimated that almost all of the marine pollution in the world is comprised of plastic materials. The average proportion varied between 60% and 80% of total marine pollution.

According to Project Aware, 15 billion pounds of plastic are produced in the U.S. every year, and only 1 billion pounds are recycled. It is estimated that in excess of 38 billion plastic bottles and 25 million Styrofoam cups end up in landfill and although plastic bottles are 100% recyclable, on average only 20% are actually recycled.

Just last week the BBC reported that the UK’s coastlines are being swamped by plastic litter. Yet, in the same breath, we here of new government initiatives aimed at ‘improving infrastructure at coastal resorts, making them more attractive to visitors’. Unless the problem of plastic pollution is addressed, any of these new initiatives may well be in vain.

Do what you can now; tackle the waste issue by choosing materials that can be recycled again and again.

With the rise in digital music encouraging mass-marketing units over style and creativity, one small UK record label, Alcopop, are trying something different with their latest compilation – and recycling glass into the bargain. Using ‘tea-stained, burnt paper (containing a link and password to a downloadable compilation)’ and a bottle “just that: a sleek glass receptacle, usually dedicated to holding a beverage” – it has been described as “Proving that music can still be presented in interesting ways” by the NME.

Whether presenting music in glass will ever become the norm is unlikely (nay an impossibility), but it’s yet another example of a small brand using glass to increase the prestige of an otherwise standard format. Plus there’s always the option to #tweetrecycle when the music is fully downloaded and digested!

At its last count, our #tweetrecyle stats were anchored at just over 2,500 – a sterling effort indeed, but it is with great pleasure I can announce that in the last few days we have rocketed to 7657 bottles – suggesting that recycling efforts have really been ratcheted up! Congratulations all.

Special mention today must go to @Martin_Vallejo who has recycled a massive 93 bottles over 16 different trips to the recycling, and @cunovanthoff who has been working particularly hard too. A man of fine musical tastes, @mr_omneo has been keeping us entertained in the UK with fine musical recommendations, as well as a whole heap of recycling – and who can forget @nonestop who has been recycling hard too.

Thanks all – keep #tweetrecycling… And tell your friends too!