[MissoulaGov] Recycling - a bit more to it?

[Jeremy Hood]

Reusing glass containers is a pleasant idea however I think everyone should be alerted about the situation. Glass can only be re-used a few times generally and many companies are unwilling to change bottle design. Many of them have unique designs. 

It might be possible to change the glass so it can be re-used but as of now the process of washing etc usually just results in a lot of broken glass bottles on filling lines at breweries. They already break when new too. The medium is unfortunately has its clear flaws. We are lucky in that it is so cheap and abundant; that applies to another situation that makes things even more resources conscious. 

Aluminum is best when recycled, clearly. The amount of resources that goes into - and in consideration that it is associated with a lot of heavy metal - it is more than I think we should be investing in. I think that period about all metals as we should recycle more of what we have and switch to more natural alternatives for a lot of things. Anyways again another medium that is a bit flawed. I see no fortunate circumstance about it except that it is light.

Ok so I you probably have a lot of counter ideas and are not pleased with the presented situation that all means of us consuming beverages is wrong. Well I have thought about this quite a bit because I hate the situation as well. The thoughts that did occur to me though are...

1. The bar/tasting room is a much more legitimate place than I ever considered it before since they try not to do anything but wash most glass they poor pints into. They have all too many problems all the time but who are we kidding alcohol is invovled. I think if people of like minds regularly attend certain ones then it will become the type of place you want to be. I think the Kettle House is a good example. 

2. Growlers and more growlers. The are reusable and break a lot less than individual bottles of glass. If you are not in a bar this is the most resource smart option you have. We all could make a concerted effort towards promoting them more.
 A. Use your growler whenever you can
 B. Encourage places to fill growlers a lot more or have an easier access ability than needing a game plan to make it to the actual growler line.
 C. Other cities/states fill smaller, much smaller growlers like 22oz versions. This could be an option on top of the half gallon version now.

Concerns I had.

First I realize we will not stop all consumption of pre-bottled stuff. I enjoy a lot of different things as well. However if we could back off from it or even start to move away from it some beautiful things could happen! First I thought our choices would be limited on beverages... However if you consider that amount of beer Missoula drinks it really means one thing... opportunity for more breweries to open and provide local jobs. This also brings back the fascination of enjoying beverages from other places if we come to a point that we hardly get our hands on out of town stuff. I could do with a little more reason to appreciate different places I go instead of seeing the same things everywhere. I would like some romance in finding new and different things if I travel. 

My biggest stink about all of this...

Why is there ever need to be a mind set that profit must come of recycling. This offends me greatly. I hate that aspect more than any other that is conditional to recycling. I hear it too often in Missoula. It seems to be a major factor in holding us back from better recycling. We should be responsible even if it costs. We are nothing but little undeveloped weak minded creatures if we can not pony up to deal with our situation that we cause. There are things that money is spent on that recycling should certainly circumvent. Many of them could of been more than enough to buy a glass pulverizing machine if we decided that was what we wanted. It sounds like the city could eventually make money from it as well or circumvent spending on things that it could replace with glass for quite a while as well since it has so many uses. 

I think I like the word circumvent... 

 		 	   		  
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