14 ms·

You know? Maybe a few dozen standard sized and broad/wide necked tops made out of laboratory grade glass would do. That stuff is almost indestructible and does

You know? Maybe a few dozen standard sized and broad/wide necked tops made out of laboratory grade glass would do. That stuff is almost indestructible and does not leach or take on anything in the concentrations used for food/drink stuff. Not even tea or coffee stains! So there is the question of the returns. Why returning when you could have a refill machine in store which could clean them fast in safe ways before refilling? For anything more than a few bottles, use reusable kegs and plug them into an appliance at home? Or those watercooler canisters? I recently saw milk in a plastic bag again, like it has been about 40 years ago? Interestingly that bag wasn't sloppy or wobbly at all, because on one side it had a handle, which felt like it was inflated with something, which made it stiff. Still one time use only, though less material.

thomasguide 5y ago
Plastic American-style milk bottles are funnily enough one of the only easily recycled plastics, if I am remembering correctly. Standardized glass containers would be useful, although in some ways already exist (mason jars usually accept common lids, for instance). What we need is a shift in mentality away from a plastic-first approach. “I’ve got one word for you kid: glass.”
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  > Plastic American-style milk bottles are funnily enough one of the only easily recycled plastics, if I am remembering correctly. I don't know about the recyclability of those plastics, but I wouldn't be surprised. They're basically two pieces of plastic screwed together without any seal, and it works well enough!
9dev 5y ago
For reference, this is what we do with beer bottles in Germany. There’s two standard bottle types which you can return to shops, which take any brand, as long as it’s the standard type. They return them to a cleaning facility which distributes them back to the breweries (extremely simplified, there’s lots of details like a mandatory deposit on reusable bottles consumers pay to incentivise returning them to stores). But basically, bottles get reused as long as they’re usable. It works quite well!
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Nopetynope. I don't remember where exactly anymore because I rarely buy beer, but I think it was Lidl where I returned some Tsingtao bottles and heard the machine crushing them, thinking WTF?! Edit: I know this isn't true for every glass bottle, but it happens. There are one way glass bottles in .de Which you still have to return, to get the 8 or 15 cents(don't know exactly) back if you care.
  - 9dev 5y ago
    Yeah, there are some intricacies as I said, didn't want to turn this into a long-form essay (because that's what you need to describe anything formalised in Germany). Lidl doesn't participate in the bottle sharing initiative as far as I know for example; differently-shaped, one-way bottles are definitely a thing; and sometimes, there are deposit machines that for some reason don't accept a local brewery, although they should. But all in all, this system definitely ensures at least a big part of German bottles are actually reused multiple times.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
      K, but what I really meant to say was rather why do the bottle return thing at all, if you could have a few standard bottles which last decades, and fill them at the store, supermarket, etc. from kegs, canisters, and return only those, instead of single bottles? Edit: where the kegs/canisters take the part of standardized liquid containers, as it is common in gastronomy already? Just need to have a machine which can do the refills from store to longlife bottle quickly and clean at the store. Editedit: Trying a braindump, from my impressions over the past decades, even long before "Grüner Punkt" and other return systems, just regarding bottles. In larger supermarkets, and stores specializing in selling bottled stuff, there are always large areas for the returns, inside and outside. All for gathering and storing that stuff, to send it back to whereever and whenever. Sometimes with larger forklifts, stacking pallets/boxes 3 storeys high. (about 9 to 12 pallets, or boxes) This is the cult of the bottle! Make work!
      - 5y ago

thomasguide 5y ago

Plastic American-style milk bottles are funnily enough one of the only easily recycled plastics, if I am remembering correctly. Standardized glass containers would be useful, although in some ways already exist (mason jars usually accept common lids, for instance). What we need is a shift in mentality away from a plastic-first approach. “I’ve got one word for you kid: glass.”

ASalazarMX 5y ago
> Plastic American-style milk bottles are funnily enough one of the only easily recycled plastics, if I am remembering correctly. I don't know about the recyclability of those plastics, but I wouldn't be surprised. They're basically two pieces of plastic screwed together without any seal, and it works well enough!

9dev 5y ago

For reference, this is what we do with beer bottles in Germany. There’s two standard bottle types which you can return to shops, which take any brand, as long as it’s the standard type. They return them to a cleaning facility which distributes them back to the breweries (extremely simplified, there’s lots of details like a mandatory deposit on reusable bottles consumers pay to incentivise returning them to stores). But basically, bottles get reused as long as they’re usable. It works quite well!

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Nopetynope. I don't remember where exactly anymore because I rarely buy beer, but I think it was Lidl where I returned some Tsingtao bottles and heard the machine crushing them, thinking WTF?! Edit: I know this isn't true for every glass bottle, but it happens. There are one way glass bottles in .de Which you still have to return, to get the 8 or 15 cents(don't know exactly) back if you care.
- 9dev 5y ago
  Yeah, there are some intricacies as I said, didn't want to turn this into a long-form essay (because that's what you need to describe anything formalised in Germany). Lidl doesn't participate in the bottle sharing initiative as far as I know for example; differently-shaped, one-way bottles are definitely a thing; and sometimes, there are deposit machines that for some reason don't accept a local brewery, although they should. But all in all, this system definitely ensures at least a big part of German bottles are actually reused multiple times.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    K, but what I really meant to say was rather why do the bottle return thing at all, if you could have a few standard bottles which last decades, and fill them at the store, supermarket, etc. from kegs, canisters, and return only those, instead of single bottles? Edit: where the kegs/canisters take the part of standardized liquid containers, as it is common in gastronomy already? Just need to have a machine which can do the refills from store to longlife bottle quickly and clean at the store. Editedit: Trying a braindump, from my impressions over the past decades, even long before "Grüner Punkt" and other return systems, just regarding bottles. In larger supermarkets, and stores specializing in selling bottled stuff, there are always large areas for the returns, inside and outside. All for gathering and storing that stuff, to send it back to whereever and whenever. Sometimes with larger forklifts, stacking pallets/boxes 3 storeys high. (about 9 to 12 pallets, or boxes) This is the cult of the bottle! Make work!
    - 5y ago