BLOG IN A BOTTLE

We knew it: Twitter must be a Friend of Glass!

The company has recently announced that they will launch 2 glass bottles of wine, in support of the American Room to Read organisation – a non-profit that helps improve literacy rates in small poor countries.

The wines – a 2009 Fledgling Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, will cost $20 (around €13), or $240 (€160) for a case of 12.

Although the wine is only available in the States at the moment, each case sold will provide around 60 local language school books and promote education in the world’s poorest regions.

More about The Fledgling Initiative.

Via: Viral Blog

…And just time for a quick roundup of some of the magnificent entrants that have been submitted for the first few days of challenges. From Haikus to playlists and using glass bottles for something that little bit different, there has been a whole host of magnificent entries… A few of our favourites are below.

nat_splat_ made this magnificent scene using a gherkin jar (almost a bottle!), a bongo-playing Rastafarian ram Kinder Egg toy, 2 scouring pads and lots of glitter! Meanwhile Nidianobre adapted a wine sample bottle to become a dish washing detergent supplier.

@Peachykeen meanwhile but together an inch perfect playlist which we’ve been listenign to pretty much all afternoon…

Finally, you’ve just got to read this little poem from Nidianobre inspired by glass… It’s lovely!

‘My #tweetrecycle glass/ is my present/to enjoy a landscape/free from litter/in the future’

Awesome stuff! And if you want to take part in any of the challenges to potentially win a trip to Belgium – just take a look at this post and get involved….

Hearty congratulations to one and all who have been involved with #tweetrecycle over the past few days – all of whom have helped see the total rocket to over 34,072 bottles recycled between you. Well done! This means that we’re almost half way to our total number of bottles #tweetrecycled in total, and have therefore successfully saved enough energy to power the streetlights of the city of London for almost 2 1/2 minutes. Lets keep it up!

Oh – and we may have mentioned them before, but make sure you take a look at the wonderful array of free downloads courtesy of Friend of Glass @atlandis. Whether it’s a new Twitter background, fresh new avatar or look for your mobile device you’re after – he’s created a wide variety of examples for you to download and use, making spreading the good word of recycling even easier. With different themes, regionalised graphics and a whole host of options, head over to his website and download yourself something pretty…

Talk about going that extra mile! An otherwise bleak Monday morning has been brightened considerably by @Artlandis … who has created, and posted, a series of #tweetrecycle wallpapers on his blog using his impressive graphic design skills to create some quite frankly beautiful work. Work that we’re extraordinarily grateful for.

I’ve placed my personal favourite background below for your delectation and delight – so do have a look, and if you’d like to take a look, or download any of his other wallpapers, pop on over to his blog now.

Sound the horns, raise the flags and such like – because the latest stats for #tweetrecycle have just arrived at blog in a bottle – and it’s all good news. After a sterling effort last week, we’ve now recycled over 2,500 bottles in total – and though we’re still a fair way off our target, it’s pleasing to see that fine progress is being made.

To put the figure in context, that means that with your efforts the #tweetrecycle has so far managed to power a single 20w lightbulb for a massive 40,000 hours – and directly reduced greenhouse emissions by 362 KG. This is a massive achievement, so thanks a lot.

Keep it up though, and if you know anyone on Twitter it might be worth giving them a shout about us too. Whether it’s 1 or 1,000 bottles… doesn’t it feel good recycling for a common good? Instructions on how to take part are here, and if you have any questions drop us a line at steph@friendsofglass.com.

It’s been all go with #tweetrecycle, and with individuals and groups bonding together to do their bit for the cause, we thought we’d mention a few of the best tweetrecyclers over the past few days! @jesus_martinv, who looks every inch like he could be in The Strokes, has been recycling plenty over the last week – with the likes of @philthD @wijnkronieken and @da_cake taking a whole host of chilli sauce bottles, Nutella jars and the odd wine bottle with multiple trips to the bottle bank.

In the ‘trade’, congratulations go to @TheCastleInn at Lulworth Cove, Dorset who have recycled a weekends worth of bottles, and @popsoda – who not only ply their customers with fantastic non-alcoholic beverages but have recycled 240 bottles over the weekend. @GreenEnergyNews have been on fire today as well, not only passing on the #tweetrecycle message to their 6,000 followers, but also recycling 50 bottles too.

We’ll be featuring more stars of #tweetrecycle on the blog over the forthcoming weeks, so if you’d like to be featured – do get in touch via @glassfriendsuk and we’d love it if you could get involved too. For full details pop over to the blog, get recycling – and tag it #tweetrecycle.

Just two ‘and a bit’ days into #tweetrecycle, and already hearty congratulations are due to the users of Twitter, who have managed to tweetcycle a sizable 236 bottles and jars – which incidentally is enough to power a fridge for 2 months. Congratulations, and keep it up!

For those who are on facebook, and would like to keep updating their status there too, why not ensure that your latest tweet also appears as your facebook status. Simply by downloading the Twitter application on Facebook from here and updating the option to automatically ‘tweet your status’, you can share your tweetcycling with a whole new group of people online – and help spread the word of recycling glass.  

Also users of Facebook might be interested in joining the Friends of Glass group on said popular social networking site – which can be found by following this link.

Thanks again for your help!

Here at Friends of Glass, we’ve been trying to decide how best to mark Green Week whilst doing something really positive for the environment at the same time – and have hit upon this, the Great Collaborative Twitter #tweetrecycle challenge!

As creating bottles and jars from recycled glass uses less energy than creating glass from raw materials, we’re going to try and see, with our collaborative efforts across Europe or even worldwide, if we can save the equivalent energy it would take to power the city of London for 5 minutes!

We all know the self-pride that comes with recycling, so why not share it with the world (or your twitter followers at least). All we’re asking you to do is pitch in via Twitter, recycle all the glass you can – and add to the #tweetrecycle challenge. If we can recycle 76,500 bottles between us – we’ll achieve our goal.

1. Go to www.twitter.com and set up a Twitter account if you haven’t already
2. Count up the number of glass items you’ve put out for recycling
3. Include them in your tweet and mark it #tweetrecycle
4. Don’t forget to encourage your friends to take part too!

Follow us @ GlassFriendsUK, GlassFriendsDEU, GlassFriendsFRA, GlassFriendsESP, GlassFriendsITA, GlassFriendsNLD – we will be updating you via Twitter on the total number of bottles recycled and the amount of energy saved throughout this campaign in six different languages.

Oh, and if you haven’t yet used Twitter, there is a guide to help get you started over at http://tinyurl.com/twitternewbies

Together, we can power the city of London!