Would not have anticipated this would be a good idea.
Isnt crushed glass essentially sand?
So… Silicon is collected, processed, made into glass, we use the glass, then the glass gets pulverized and added to the soil and we make new glass… And all the energy used? We could use a glass jar until it brakes, cleaning it and reusing it, and once it breaks recycling it into another jar or bottle or whatever is better than making new glass.
How is this any good? Even if refined silicon from glass is more efficient for the nutrient thing than silica sand, it’s just adding another thing to the list of things we keep adding to the soil instead of creating a healthy soil and reducing our consumption. I understand nothing.
Its kinda frustrating because this is how we used to do it. Im just old enough that I lived in the pre plastic world. Plastic existed but it took off in the 80’s. So the deposit on glass things made it expensive and it was heavy and you would have glass litter which is kinda dangerous. So plastic just took over because people did not want to pay the upfront cost and did not want the weight nor the breakage. It kinda drives me nuts though. I remember the last glass things I could get was 16oz coke bottles and then even they went away. That lasted into the 90’s. I don’t see any convenience today realistically in daily life from the 70’s except for the microwave.
Glass jars aren’t reused because of the infrastructure required to reuse them. The only glass I can think of which is reused outside of the point of sale are soda and beer bottles, and that is only usually at restaurants which will collect the bottles they use to ship back.
Outside of a massive sorting facility in every supermarket generating no value for the store owner, the only other way to ensure bottle reuse would be subscription delivery like milk used to be or hyper focused stores which only sell a few products like how grocery shopping used to be.
I buy glass jars and bottles specifically to reuse them extensively.
Swing top bottles are great.
generating no value
Right in the capitalism…
Ok, but even communist run systems wouldn’t require the massive sorting system of hundreds of different types of glass jars. At best, they’d force standardization so there are only a few jar types in the country and make all labels easy to remove.
However, what most likely would happen is everything is going to be bring your own container and the shoppers are going to be responsible for cleaning the old jars.
Some of us kind of live that way already!
For many years we have bought good food partly for good reusable packaging. One USA boycott we break is a brand of decent peanut butter that has really skookum reusable jars which we keep for midterm food preservation, such as vacuum packing our dehydrated fruits.
One place we shop even packages bulk goods into nice standard jars and charges a deposit. We either reuse the jars at home or stock them with our reusable shopping bags for return on the next shop.
In addition, I am seeing more “refillery” stores, where as you say, it’s BYO containers for cooking oil, soap, dry goods, etc.
We used to have a zero waste shop here but its a shame how much more they charge even if you buy in bulk. I kinda get it they are going to cost more but if I could at least bulk buy for vaguely similar prices to any other shop it would be far more appealing.
Yeah, it isn’t impossible. However, I expect there would be a radical rethink of food supply chains. This would likely include more grocery stores adopting the Aldi/Trader Joe’s model of fewer brands and selection of product since the cost of differentiation gets borne more by the store. There would likely be an increase in public markets with several vendors as each vendor is effectively a brand of food.
I think enshittification will hit and don’t grocery stores will either stop offering container sanitization as a service or will start selling the service independently and incorporating the higher cost in shelf products. Grocery stores operate on thin margins, so I expect this cost to get transferred to consumers somehow.
I also think a lot of existing companies will fight this tooth and nail as their bottling and canning lines provide a massive barrier to entry for competition. I also think a lot of customers will fight this since it radically changes how they shop.
Yes, the primary strategy here is to reeducate shoppers so that people demand more seasonal food, from closer, that supports their food sovereignty, and is higher quality and more nutritious with less processing.
We can look to initiatives such as the slow food movement, and food cooperatives, and even buying clubs. Wherever possible, diminish oligarchy by buying from the farmer, or the small vendor.
We also need to remind everybody that more packaging is simply just stealing the future from your descendants.
what could go wrong
Finely crushed glass is basically sand 🤷
This is more pulverized than shard
Until for reasons of capitalism less finely crushed glass is cheaper somewhere for some reason, and is used instead.
It will happen, and people will die somewhere because of it.
Oh, this is happening already. The world is running out of various forms of sand that are crucial to our industrial infrastructure.
The competition for the remainders has already turned murderous in some places.
cf. The World in a Grain by Vince Beiser
He patented the method of crushing the glass. That right there is the likely reason it’ll be cheaper for someone else not to so finely crush it.
Also, an easily recyclable material that can create bottles ad nauseam is instead being destroyed in order to patch the problems with commercial agriculture?
None of this is very Solarpunk.
@punksnotdead @Fluke Keep picturing getting a shard in your eye… can’t not picture it…
