Canada Dry crate floating in a farmer’s water reservoir. Soft drinks used to be sold mostly in refillable glass here until EU directives required the government to allow people to sell them in plastic bottles. The old system was seen as trade protection I guess. Local bottling in reusable glass made sense to me but only a few years later it accounts for just a fraction of the market.
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May 4th, 2010 at 10:05 am
It seems Sainsburys are to run a trial of selling wine in plastic bottles? I just think it’s totally nonsense. Wine in plastic bottles??? Never in our house I can tell you now.
It just seems we are always taking a step back. Even if the bottles are from recyled plastic that is the end of the line for them. Plastic can only be recycled once and then it meets it’s ultimate end in landfill.
“Since most plastic bottles find their way in landfills, they will just end up buried beneath the ground. The soil may be contaminated over time with these toxic substances. If the soil is affected, plants cannot grow easily. Groundwater may also be contaminated if the toxic chemicals sink deeper into the ground. Plastic bottles may be reused by recycling companies, but millions of these bottles are eventually thrown away.”
(http://www.ehow.com/list_5928854_negative-effects-plastic-bottles-environment.html)
Glass bottles on the other hand have a remarkably high recycling rate and can be recycled over and over again.In real terms glass bottles nedd NEVER end up in landfill.
The results of a survey carried out by Feve:the EU association for container glass
“glass was the most eco-friendly packing material as it released figures showing that the 25.5 billion containers collected for recycling in 2008 represented “an average recycling rate of 65 per cent for the EU27 countries”. The haul represents almost 11.5 million tonnes of glass collected throughout the body’s European membership – including Turkey, Switzerland and Norway”
And they concluded that glass was …
“best for the environment.Glass recycling preserves natural resources – with every one tonne of recycled glass saving 1.2 tonnes of natural raw materials. It claimed that recycling glass also saves energy. Each 10 per cent of recycled glass added in the production cycle results in a saving of around 3 per cent”
http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Glass-packaging-best-for-the-environment
Say NO to Plastic and YES to Glass!