Day #2 -Sad Soda Bottles

(Part 2 in a series -The Value of Glass)

Hearing that most recycled glass bottles aren’t reused was sad news to my husband. For such a techie guy, it’s ironic he prefers the idea of returning glass pop bottles to the store, like in the old days, to be trucked to the bottling plant for cleaning and refilling. Crushing glass bottles into pieces called cullet then sending it back to manufacturers doesn’t feel right to him. It’s a nostalgia thing I guess, but there is an argument to be made on that point.

Cleaning and refilling bottles takes much less energy than remanufacturing bottles.

On the other hand transporting these bottles back to the plant takes a lot of energy. Bottling plants aren’t local anymore. What was once a local bottler is now only a distributor and bottling has been consolidated regionally making bottling centers farther apart. That’s how plastic containers got a big foot in the door, by saving on transportation and processing.

The 1960’s began the age of plastic and Nat Wyeth, engineer brother of artist Andrew Wyeth, was working for DuPont Chemical. Hearing that attempts to use plastic bottles for carbonated soda beverages had failed, Wyeth asked why. The answer was that plastic bottles couldn’t handle the expanding carbonation. Wyeth tested for himself. He filled a liquid detergent bottle with soda and placed it in the refrigerator. Yep, it blew up just like they said it would.

Working at DuPont, it took Wyeth ten years and more than 10,000 attempts to find the solution: polyethylene terephthalate-PET. He created the plastic bottle that would contain the expanding carbon dioxide and also pass the two-meter drop test. Once the industry was onto lightweight throwaway plastic bottles, glass soda bottles were left behind.

Today there remain only a few soft drinks committed to glass bottles, mainly for brand recognition. IBC Root Beer is one such beverage.

But real beer - - for decades real beer took a stand against those girlie plastic bottles. Why’s that? Coming up next - the beer bottle and bar report.

Did you know? The IBC in IBC Root Beer stand for Independent Breweries Company of St. Louis. IBC root beer was introduced in 1919 during prohibition as an alternative to alcohol.

Factoids:

• Glass is made from sand, soda ash, and lime heated to 2500° F
• The first discovered glass was caused by intense heat from erupting volcanoes
• Earliest glass was made into jewelry beads
• Around 14 AD containers were made by blowing molten glass on a tube
• Before 1903 all glass bottles in the U.S. were hand blown.
• The 1920 census reported that 5000 glass bottles existed in the U.S.

Link to Glass Packaging Institute