Finally picking up on a string from a while back, with some anecdotal info on
niche markets for refillable glass...

While I can't argue with any of your points, Bob, refilled milk and cream
bottles are working in my community for two independent local dairies, one
targeting the organic consumers, one not. It's a one dollar deposit per bottle,
returned at any grocery store selling their milk. Granted, I'm shopping in a
fairly affluent, smallish college town on the border of rural yet progressive
Vermont, not in a big city. But as more and more Americans become interested in
safer foods from known local sources, I wonder if other communities and dairies
couldn't also find success with the refillable glass bottle if we can.

John Leigh
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Hanover/Lebanon, New Hampshire


--- JTRProfessionalRecyclersNetwork@yahoogroups.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: Kirby Robert
To: JTRProfessionalRecyclersNetwork@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 10:02 AM
Subject: Re: [JTRProfessionalRecyclersNetwork] glass recycling



I'd separate the ideas of deposit and refillables. Although I managed a
project years ago that determined that refilling is the most energy-efficient
glass container system, I also came to believe that it's simply not going to be
re-created in the United States, and so capital, political or otherwise,
shouldn't be spent on it.


Three reasons refilling won't come back:
1) glass container mfg is now a boutique business. Whereas the longneck beer
bar bottle used to be used by most beer makers, now each has a unique design,
made possible by short-run container mfg. Each winery of any size also has
their own custom bottle, and in addition have custom colors. And forget about
ceramic inks. And water (and sodium hydroxide) resistant press apply labels.
Too many sizes, types, and colors.


2) I'm old enough to remember getting washed Coke bottles. Little nicks
around the rim and chips where the bottles clinked together were just part of
the charm of the product. I don't see today's parents feeling the same when
Junior gets a Coke with a chipped rim.


3) Have you noticed how lightweight many glass containers are now? The
lightweighting strategy seems to have really worked, but this also makes them
less likely to survive the sorting and washing process.


Deposit laws, on the other hand, I totally support.


Bob Kirby






On Nov 24, 2008, at 12:50 PM, David Biddle wrote:


I hear there's some interest in re-examining deposits too, Russ. Need to
completely re-invent things though. Win-Win for all. We need folks to think big
these days. A carbon tax may work wonders on a number of fronts. Re-inventing
outmoded systems, though, requires creative, informed, fearless, and balanced
thinking. The future's almost here. Yes we can?

db
--
David Biddle, Executive Director
<http://www.gpcrc.com>
Greater Philadelphia Commercial Recycling Council
P.O. Box 4037
Philadelphia, PA 19118

215-247-3090 (desk)
215-432-8225 (cell)
Visit our new web log at: http://gpcrc.blogspot.com

on 11/24/08 3:38 PM, Klein, Russell (DPW) at russell.klein@... wrote:





Excellent points all, David.

FYI, from what I hear from asking around, it seems to me the level of
hostility toward the concept of deposit schemes, from industry, has greatly
abated of late.

___________________________________________
Russell Klein
Community Environmental Education Specialist, D.C. Office of Recycling
D.C. Department of Public Works
202-645-8505 Direct Ext.
202-645-8245 Hotline
202-645-8518 Fax
Rethink. Reduce. Reuse... And then Recycle.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: JTRProfessionalRecyclersNetwork@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:JTRProfessionalRecyclersNetwork@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of David
Biddle
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 2:49 PM
To: JTRProfessionalRecyclersNetwork@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [JTRProfessionalRecyclersNetwork] glass recycling

On the glass front, we're looking into working with a new company that's
started up here in PA called LCL Industries. Check them out here:

http://www.lclindustries.com/

I was just at a presentation given by Neil Seldman on the economics of
recycling last week and Neil went into a riff on the need for refillables and a
deposit system for glass. Now, PA is constantly seeing these notions thwarted by
bottlers, grocery chains and restaurants and bars, but it seems to me glass is
becoming more and more of misnomer in recycling programs everywhere (we have
been told by many of our commercial members that their haulers refuse to take
glass in their commingled recycling batches). How long before the glass industry
begins to see the writing on the wall and begins to support deposits and
refillables? And for that matter the wine and spirits folks.

More generally, is there any room in Obama's green jobs policy for
establishing a national infrastructure centered on a national bottle bill, one
that emphasizes investment in refillables? Perhaps the entire recycling
industry (and community of professional) needs to carefully weigh how it is
going to respond to the glass problem realistically. Do you really just walk
away from it and say, well, it doesn't work for our system so it's okay to
landfill it?

All of which reminds me: do we need to be thinking about a new voice in
Washington centered on sound recycling policy and forward, innovative thinking?
If we don't have that, recycling is going to fade out of the Obama Green
Mission. Re-investment in state-of-the-art paper, steel and glass mills sure
seems to me to be a no-brainer. Working with states on their compost and
biosolids infrastructures seems kind of logical too.

db



--
David Biddle, Executive Director
<http://www.gpcrc.com>
Greater Philadelphia Commercial Recycling Council
P.O. Box 4037
Philadelphia, PA 19118

215-247-3090 (desk)
215-432-8225 (cell)
Visit our new web log at: http://gpcrc.blogspot.com
--- end of quote ---



John Leigh
Manager, Waste & Recycling Programs
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
603-650-7719

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