Smashing up glass, that’s insane

First posted December 2020 and since then nothing has changed.

We take materials from various sources and then use huge amounts of energy to heat them up to make container glass, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_glass#:~:text=Container%20glass%20has%20a%20lower,storage%20of%20beverages%20and%20food.. Then we fill it with something and transport it potentially long distances. The jars are put on shelves where shoppers who have often driven to the supermarket by the jars and take them home. The contents are emptied and then if they are lucky the glass containers are smashed and possibly recycled. A lot more energy will be used to make them back into glass containers again. Others are just chucked in the rubbish. We have developed highly inefficient one way supply chains and here we sit with a high in May 2020 of 417ppm CO2. Nothing to be surprised at if you look how inefficient our systems are. Those same shoppers have to drive back to the supermarket to buy another jar full of their favourite content. The lorries delivering the jars to the supermarket have to return to the depot. Lorries or vans supplying the depot have to return to the suppliers. There is therefore something very wrong with both our economics and our one way supply chain both of which have contributed to the amount of climate change generating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We need to change and we need to change now. The value of the environment is not costed or not fully costed into our supply chains because otherwise those glass containers would be reused over and over again.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

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Smashing up glass, that’s insane

I posted this a year ago and the madness of capitalism and its resource wasting and contribution to climate change continues. Current recycling is far from enough.

30th December 2020

We take materials from various sources and then use huge amounts of energy to heat them up to make container glass, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_glass#:~:text=Container%20glass%20has%20a%20lower,storage%20of%20beverages%20and%20food.. Then we fill it with something and transport it potentially long distances. The jars are put on shelves where shoppers who have often driven to the supermarket by the jars and take them home. The contents are emptied and then if they are lucky the glass containers are smashed and possibly recycled. A lot more energy will be used to make them back into glass containers again. Others are just chucked in the rubbish. We have developed highly inefficient one way supply chains and here we sit with a high in May 2020 of 417ppm CO2. Nothing to be surprised at if you look how inefficient our systems are. Those same shoppers have to drive back to the supermarket to buy another jar full of their favourite content. The lorries delivering the jars to the supermarket have to return to the depot. Lorries or vans supplying the depot have to return to the suppliers. There is therefore something very wrong with both our economics and our one way supply chain both of which have contributed to the amount of climate change generating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We need to change and we need to change now. The value of the environment is not costed or not fully costed into our supply chains because otherwise those glass containers would be reused over and over again.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton clothes and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

Our Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Recycling, what will happen to this glass jar?

An item I posted in May 2020 and we’re still smashing glass for recycling rather than reversing the process of delivery from factory to household. How hard can it be?

So here is a container that billions of us have access to. In this case it had palm oil free peanut butter in it. They are very useful containers and good at preserving perishable content but not everyone has access to them. This one was placed in the recycling bag today and collected by the council but what will happen to it?

In all probability it will end up being made into a new glass container of some kind having been taken to a glass recycling centre and broken up and remelted. That however is still not very good for the environment as a lot of energy has been used in the production of the jar. As the lorry that delivered the jar to the supermarket will drive back to a distribution point there is a case for me to return my jar to the supermarket so the lorry can return the empty containers to the distribution point and from there the containers can be sent back to the manufacturer for cleaning and reuse.

This process must be part of any sustainable doughnut economic model. It is also part of a wider discussion on how we grow and package and supply enough peanut butter to all those people who would like to eat peanut butter and not only those that can, but that would have to be a much longer blog.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton T-shirts and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Our Etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

Milk bottles, Bar Bruno, London

A line of empty milk bottles in a great little cafe in Soho. 4th of January 2020.

Our links

Our Teemill shop site for our organic cotton T-shirts and bags, https://junagarh-media.teemill.com/.

My author page where you can discover more about my books, https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07D3ZTQ1L.

Our Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/JunagarhMedia.

This is our website for all our photography and my books, https://www.junagarhmedia.co.uk/.

We are also on Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21104365@N06/.

Also on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/junagarh_media/.

Smashing up glass, that’s insane

We take materials from various sources and then use huge amounts of energy to heat them up to make container glass, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_glass#:~:text=Container%20glass%20has%20a%20lower,storage%20of%20beverages%20and%20food.. Then we fill it with something and transport it potentially long distances. The jars are put on shelves where shoppers who have often driven to the supermarket by the jars and take them home. The contents are emptied and then if they are lucky the glass containers are smashed and possibly recycled. A lot more energy will be used to make them back into glass containers again. Others are just chucked in the rubbish. We have developed highly inefficient one way supply chains and here we sit with a high in May 2020 of 417ppm CO2. Nothing to be surprised at if you look how inefficient our systems are. Those same shoppers have to drive back to the supermarket to buy another jar full of their favourite content. The lorries delivering the jars to the supermarket have to return to the depot. Lorries or vans supplying the depot have to return to the suppliers. There is therefore something very wrong with both our economics and our one way supply chain both of which have contributed to the amount of climate change generating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. We need to change and we need to change now. The value of the environment is not costed or not fully costed into our supply chains because otherwise those glass containers would be reused over and over again.