Why is beer still sold as glass bottles. Recently my city removed glass from recyclable items and im guessing thats because its harder to recycle then they believed. However. There are some beer thats comes in both can and bottle and 9 times out of 10 its a bottled version. Aluminum must be cheaper right?
In: Other
Recycling a beer bottle: wash it out, refill, stick on new label.
Recycling an aluminum can: melt it down in a furnace and do the whole production process again.
I dont know the answer definitively but I’d say glass bottles are still pretty cheap to use. Also it probably has a better taste out of a bottle. Just like sodas do.
Glass is still incredibly cheap to both reuse and recycle. Beer is packaged in glass because it is still superior to plastic in preventing gas diffusion, and it also pollutes less.
The city (like mine) has probably stopped accepting *non – deposit* glass for recycling. basically, if there isn’t much market for the product, and it is inert in the landfall, than it might not be worth doing economically or environmentally. Beer bottles with deposit are mostly going to be *re – used* as opposed to being recycled.
In our case, the only place that would buy up the glass to actually recycle it was not paying enough to cover the fuel cost of transporting it to them.
[source](https://www.tucsonaz.gov/es/announcement/glass-reuse-plan)
deff makes it less convenient and probably wont work well.
Recycling was/is a failed experiment. Recycling is not cost effective in any way, and recycling plastics is worse for the environment than virgin plastic.
Glass is by far more environmentally friendly, colored glass (color dependent) helps protect the beer from sun/uv/science stuff. Glass is inert, metal is not.
There is still a stigma that canned beer affects the taste, however modern cans are made better and have no effect on the taste. And the fact that they totally block light contamination actually makes them better containers to preserve beer.
Glass is one of the easiest materials to recycle. You smash it, melt it, and then recast it.
Reusing a glass bottle is horribly easy. You wash it and inspect it for breaks.
Glass is used for the same reasons why I won’t buy canned bear. Glass truly is air tight and glass does not impart itself onto the beverage. Aluminum is sprayed with a varnish to come “good enough” to use.
Lots of answers here about why glass is so cheap, but not explaining why soda is almost universally sold in plastic bottles then. I don’t think there’s any difference between beer and soda that would make glass more suited to one and plastic to the other, so I have to guess that beer is usually sold in glass bottles because consumers expect it.
Maybe there’s an implication of quality with glass, and selling beer is more about selling an experience than soda is. Both come in aluminum cans, to be sure, but I feel like a plastic bottle of beer at a bar would feel really cheap.
>Recently my city removed glass from recyclable items and im guessing thats because its harder to recycle then they believed.
Glass is very easy to recycle but in single-stream recycling glass has a high chance to shatter and potentially contaminate other recycling materials like plastic or aluminum.
Glass is more expensive to produce and ship, but is inert and retains gas better.
Customers pretty universally perceive glass containers as being more pleasant, and as higher end looking.
Latest Answers