The (Rinse and) Return of Glass Milk Bottles
If there’s one method of recycling glass that’s even better than popping it into the local bottle bank…it’s reusing it as a bottle.
Twenty years ago, glass milk bottles were the norm. The whine of the electric milk van and the clink of bottles were the sounds of deepest morning, a time early enough to burrow under the covers for another forty winks. Then along came the double whammy of rising costs and Tetra Pak – and in dairies across the world, glass fell out of fashion.
Until now. Traditional dairy practices are making a timely comeback – after all, what could be eco-friendlier than washing out your used bottles to be collected by the dairy for sterilizing? If you’re looking out upon a dawning Manhattan, you might see the vans of the Manhattan Milk Company dropping off fresh organic milk and keeping their “rinse and return” routine ticking over. The key is participation – getting people to return their empties and keep them in the loop long enough to be less expensive than current packaging methods.
So find a local milkman – and wake up to the green, elegant beauty of our humble little milk bottle (as these people have).
Image: macinate
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7 Comments
October 7th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
This is a great post. I am trying to use glass bottles in my home now, and my kids love recycling and they love the milk too! For more on this, please visit my post, here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cproppe/2922741040/
October 8th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Many thanks for popping by, and for the link, Colleen!
January 8th, 2009 at 9:14 am
I think it’s a great idea to have glass bottles. Being 64, I’ve live thru the milkman comming 2 times a week and leaving the milk in the hallway. You were on a first name basis with the guy that did the delivery. Some of those guys were humanitarians. If someone had little children and were hard up for coins, he would carry the bill to the next week or the next delivery.
Everyone had bottle brushes near the sink and that was part of doing the daily dishes, this was not a hardship.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
what about plastic bottles? do you have ways of creative recycling them? thank you!
May 6th, 2009 at 9:38 am
What type of plastic bottles, Mell? There are lots of things you can make, depending on the type.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Doesn’t the shipping weight of the glass bottles cause so much extra gas to be used that it offsets any benefit of reusable bottles?
September 18th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
After working for dairy with Nestle and others in land and abroad, I put a mini dairy in Pakistan 1000ltr/ hour and determined to launch pasteurized milk in Pakistan in returnable Glass bottles and will appreciate all idea… This is just great feeling I have
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