BLOG IN A BOTTLE

Craft breweries are popping up all over the place as beer connoisseurs seek tasty, locally produced alternatives to bland mass-market brews. For their part, brewers are seeking to craft a product from local organic ingredients that is more environmentally friendly and is better for you. Their aim is to create a sustainable local livelihood. However, increasing numbers of brewers are turning away from glass and choosing cans to package their brews.

One reason that is often cited is the light weight of cans. While weight is a consideration, the overall environmental impact of a packaging material should also be considered. And for brewers particularly, the effect of the packaging material on the taste and longevity of their products should be equally as important.

Let’s talk about taste first. Glass is the only packaging material that is exempt from the European Union’s regulations for the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (known as REACH). REACH obliges industries to register any material or substance that might potentially be harmful for human health, and to duly inform citizens. Glass is also the only packaging material that has been rated Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) by the US Food and Drug Administration, a designation it has held since 1960.

Why? Because glass is the only packaging material that is completely safe for human beings over its entire lifecycle.

Unlike other packaging materials, glass has nothing to hide. Other materials require strip-mining to extract ores and need vast amounts of energy to process them. The main ingredient in glass is sand, a completely natural resource which is constantly being renewed by the action of the Earth’s oceans.

Most other packaging materials were only invented in the past 120 years. By contrast, the process for making glass has been around for more than 5,000 years, and it is relatively simple. And unlike other packaging materials, no toxic wastes are produced.

There is also a big difference at the end of the packaging material’s useful life. Most can be recycled, but their properties are compromised by the recycling process. This is known as downcycling, using a product to create a new product with reduced or inferior properties. However, glass can be recycled over and over again without losing its properties.

Almost every packaging material known to mankind is currently making the claim that it’s the greenest available. For consumers, those statements are sometimes difficult to verify. Thankfully regulators are starting to take note of these ‘greenwashing’ campaigns and are taking action against products that make claims which cannot be substantiated.There is no denying that other materials possess unique properties and they have a role to play in our world. But they often come at an enormous environmental and social cost. Is it really worth that cost to make beer lighter to carry?

On 1 January 2010, Vancouver resident Taina Uitto made a pledge to live her life without plastic for the next year. Uitto documented her efforts on her Plastic Manners blog, even photographing the non-recyclable materials she acquired each month (here you can see her collection for February 2010).

Although it was not easy to give up plastics totally for a year, Uitto continues to refuse them. She also encourages others to make the effort, an initiative that the Friends of Glass wholeheartedly support. We know of at least five good reasons to choose glass any day!

To give people a taste of what is involved, Uitto started the Day Without Plastic blog – encouraging people to give up plastics for just one day on either World Ocean Day (8 June) or International Coastal Cleanup Day (19 September). Now environmental blogging site Re-Nest is challenge everyone to give up plastics for a month.

Re-Nest have published a list of three steps almost anyone can follow. One is a step that Uitto took at the beginning of her life without plastic: making an inventory of the plastics already in your home. The inventory helps you to understand where you can replace plastics with more sustainable materials such as glass.

So do you think that you could give up plastic for a day, a month, or even a year? Can you make a sustainable switch to glass or convince others to glass up their lives?

Why not make your pledge on the Friends of Glass Facebook page and share your tips! Because glass truly has nothing to hide!

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.

Do you agree with Russo? Why not share your opinion on the Friends of Glass Facebook page.

Let’s make that change all together!

Making your own salt might be something that you would never consider doing, but it is an incredibly simple process. Not Without Salt is a blog dedicated to all things salty, and they provide some very simple anyone can follow to make your own salt.

First you need to gather some sea water – glass bottles are ideal for the purpose. When you get home, filter the water through at least four layers of fine muslin or cotton cloth to remove any impurities. You should be left with clean (but salty!) water.

Gently boil the water until it is all evaporated. To save energy, you can also place the solution in the biggest and shallowest dish you can find. Put it in a sunny place and allow the water to evaporate naturally. It will take longer, but your salt crystals will be larger. Once all of the water is evaporated, you have salt that is ready to use. Store it in a sealed glass container and use as needed.

The Glass Packaging Institute (GPI) has released details of its first complete cradle-to-cradle life cycle assessment (LCA) of glass for packaging. The LCA reaffirms the environmental benefits of container glass recycling.

The cradle-to-cradle scope of the study covers the entire life cycle of the product, including the environmental cost of recycling used glass to create new glass. The study confirms that using recycled glass (cullet) to make new glass reduces both energy use and carbon emissions. “In creating more recycling awareness and working to improve recycled glass collection, the industry is helping boost the cullet content in manufacturing,” explains Joseph Cattaneo, President of the Glass Packaging Institute. “The study shows increased cullet helps reducing energy emissions, conserve raw materials, extend the life of glass manufacturing furnaces, and save energy.”

While other industries claim that the transportation of glass bottles has a bigger environmental impact because of the weight of the containers, a key finding of the LCA dismisses this claim. The transportation of raw materials and cullet used in glass production represents less than 4 to 5% of the total energy used to produce container glass.

For more a copy of the study and more information, please visit the Glass Packaging Institute’s dedicated LCA page.

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!

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!

Glass is a totally natural material which, in its most basic form, is created by melting silica sand. So where better to try making glass than in a desert, where both are plentiful. That’s what Markus Kayser did when he took his Solar-Sinter to the Sahara Desert earlier this year.

The Solar-Sinter is essentially a 3D printer. While 3D printers typically rely on resin and lasers to form the object, Kayser’s machine used Saharan silica sand and the sun’s rays. The results are amazing as his video shows. Kayser hopes that his experiment will become the basis for a new glass production process that is completely natural.

Markus Kayser – Solar Sinter Project from Markus Kayser on Vimeo.

During the early years of the 20^th century, the city of Fort Bragg in northern California began to dispose of its waste by tipping it over a cliff. The waste fell onto a strip of shoreline below, where it was washed away or corroded by the action of the sea. Known locally as “The Dumps,” the site was utilised for all manner of garbage until it was closed in the late 1960s.

In the 40 years since, Mother Nature has reclaimed the shoreline. The action of the waves has corroded or claimed most of the metal and other debris, replacing it with a patchwork covering of sea-glass stones which glitter in the sunshine. There are sea glass pieces of all shapes and sizes, and in almost all the colours of the rainbow.

In 2003, the beach was incorporated into the MacKerricher State Park and it is now illegal to remove the sea glass. That should help ensure that Glass Beach remains beautiful for many years. But it made us wonder how many years before the waves grind the sea glass into glass sand?

A few weeks ago we featured a story on Boston Sea Glass. This collection must make Alison’s mouth water!

Alison Goyette grew up near the beach where she now collects the main raw material for her beautiful jewellery creations – sea glass. Marketed as Boston Sea Glass, each jewel is unique as it is created by the action of salt and sand on the glass over many years.

Alison combines the sea glass with metals and other materials such as beads and pearls to create necklaces, earrings and even cards. Bespoke pieces are popular with brides who want something unique for their big day or a special gift for their bridesmaids. Pieces for summer beach weddings are very popular!

Have you collected any sea glass on holidays this year? We’d love to see the shapes and colours – why not share them on the Friends of Glass Facebook page.