I broke a glass jar on my kitchen floor, and while I was trying to locate and neutralize the hundreds of small, invisible, razor-sharp fragments, I wondered: why is it that we still use glass? It is so friggin' dangerous! It breaks very easily indeed, and the resulting fragments have some of the sharpest edges found anywhere.
Show me anybody who has not been cut by glass at least a couple times, including most children.
I realize it may not be practical to get rid of all glass objects, but surely most of them. In most countries they don't recycle glass bottles and jars, so why not use plastic? It is cheaper, less bulky, weighs a lot less, and does not cut anybody.
Thank you wonko!
ReplyDeleteAs a glass person, I am bias!
There are already carbon taxes on the manufacture of glass.
Wonko is right, glass is completely recyleable. You just keep remelting and reforming.
Glass is not bio-degradeable, and the problems arise in transportation for recycling. Some areas have better schemes than others.
At the moment, there is a glut of green glass from wine bottles. I`m told it`s because the metal prices are so high at the moment due to a metals shortage for production in China, that there is more money in transporting metals than glass.
In order to get rid of some of it, glass is being used in groundfill for roads etc, which is a real waste.
Why glass? Glass is an extremely strong material. Hit a sheet of glass on it`s top edge when vertical, and it will probably not break.
It has optical,thermal and sound qualities which other materials do not have.
A lot of polythene materials still `breathe`, i.e., stick a smelly cheese in a plastic container, chances are in an hour you will be able to still smell it.
This doesn`t happen with glass.
Recycling is the problem. The roads to Everest are littered with empty coca-cola bottles. It is a disgrace.
Coca-cola and others should help either air-lift the mountain of bottles out of there, or better still, fund a solar panel kiln, where locals can re-melt the glass into sellable gifts for tourists.
Yes, people cut themseves on glass, but in offices all over the country every day, people cut themselves on paper envelopes!
Glass may cut, but one big argument against plastic is that it's made from OIL, you know, that stuff that will run out in 50 years or five months, depending on how alarmist the person is that you're listening to.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but plastic, even in its many and varied incarnations, cannot match glass for its pure aesthetic qualities. Its wide range of function, form and longevity have not been duplicated, despite ingenious attempts by the plastics manufacturers. There still exist intact glass vessels dating from the time of the Pharoahs, which are just as beautiful now as when they were created.
ReplyDeleteOn a purely self-serving note, liquids just do not taste as good when stored in plastic, metal or other materials. The finer wines and spirits are never stored in anything other than glass, for good reason: glass is very stable, chemically! I agree, however, that many common utility items now made from glass could be made from other, safer materials.
Well. Maybe nanotechnology will come up with some great alternative.
ReplyDeleteNASA have been playing around with glass.
ReplyDeletehttp://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/14apr_zeroglass.htm
The future of glass continues to be interesting!
Can`t get that link to paste and work....
ReplyDeleteIf you key in `space glass` into google, and go down the page to the link refering to NASA, you will get the article...good stuff!
That space glass article is really interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear that glass is awesome. It is just the cutting-human-flesh aspect I find troublesome.
(Who woulda thunk a post about glass would be one of the most commented-on?) :)