Which Is Greener? Buying Beer In Glass Bottles, Or Aluminum Cans?

The natural form of metal is metal...

 

I feel like Glass would be better. It's easy to reshape any amount of glass back into a new bottle with fire. Which doesn't even produce toxic fumes in the process

I don't know how aluminum is used/recycled. But I know burning it is a bad idea

--I assume glass is the better option, plus you never hear about anything like a sand crisis or glass crisis. We've got plenty

 

to be realistic, there's probably plenty of aluminum. aluminum is the 3rd most abundant element occurring in the earth's crust. mining for it though leaves huge holes in the earth though as well as a lot of energy. it requires way less energy to melt down a metal and re-alloy it, than to melt down ore, and seperate out the pure metal. I know aluminum has historically been smelted using the electrolytic smelting process where the ore is melted in a furnace and electricity passed through the melt, the molten aluminum is drawn to and collects on the anode. This of course uses a huge amount of electricity (energy) which has to come from somewhere that usually involves adding carbon to the atmosphere.

it's kind of a pet peeve when i see someone throw any sort of container, or other material into the garbage that could have been recycled. such a waste!! they think i'm being anal but seriously some people would throw it into the garbage if the garbage receptacle just happened to be only three steps closer than the recycling receptable ... shows you where their priorities are!

there's also the situation created by this of having to find somewhere to get rid of this garbage ... perfectly good material shouldn't end up there, so throwing away aluminum, glass, steel, plastics that can be recycled is twice wrong. one day we may be mining centuries old landfills for cheap materials.

 

Can you pull a pop can out of the ground? Does a car build itself and then just appear?

Metal is made through many processes depending on type, grade and material all together. Iron pyrite is what you get, not slabs of metal!

 

I didn't know you could pull glass bottles out of the ground either...

If we are discussing aluminum cans, which I thought we were, then yes you can pull chunks of aluminum straight from the ground. Iron pyrite is not the only thing our earth has to offer. Technically it takes less heat to reshape the chunk of aluminum into a can than it does to melt sand down into a piece of glass.

Also, let's say you drop a can on the ground. It will just be another slightly different shaped hunk of aluminum on the ground. If you drop a glass bottle on the ground, is it just sand?

 

Let's not go dropping things on the ground though.

 

Over time, yes it will be ground down to fine grit. The can will will flatten out.

The oceans have turned out some pretty nice pieces of glass. Lightning striking sand also creates cool looking pieces. A true bottle no, but I have seen a couple that look like neat.

 

The greener beer: In bottles or cans?
http://www.opb.org/news/blog/ecotrope/the-greener-beer-bottles-v-cans/

 

Why you drinkin' green beer?

 

i'll take it. it's better than a vast majority of people who would throw it on the ground if the garbage receptacle was three steps away from where they're standing.

 

No, I'm afraid you cannot.
Aluminum occurs naturally in the form of an oxide.
Aluminium oxide (alumina) is extracted from bauxite in a refinery. Alumina is then used to produce primary aluminium.

 

I stand corrected

 

Glass

 

Ive been hiking in the same woods for the last 20yrs, as someone pointed out in a recent picture of a mushroom. (the glass next to the mushroom. there is loads glass in this one part the woods. Very popular party spot back in the 70/80s ,, died out in the 90s and nobody but squirrels go there now. I noticed the cans aluminum and tin mostly dissolve back into the ground..

 

I believe glass is more green. Glass eventually breaks back down. In aluminum manufacturing, there are many hazardous byproducts that are left over such as fluoride. I also cannot begin to express the damage to the environment that the mining does.

 

Maybe returnable bottles are a feasible alternative but thats not something thats happening in America, I certainly don't see any products in returnable bottles.

Otherwise glass takes more energy and resources to recycle than it does to make the virgin product so no, glass is not greener.

If you can't sell it to a recyclers, then generally it's not worth recycling. No ones buying glass and no ones melting it down to make new bottles, and if they are they are doing it at a loss.

I just saw a sign up at a local recycler, they are not buying paper or cardboard for the time being either.