Traders Point Creamery, Organic Meadow, Oberweis Dairy, and More Offer Wholesome Milk and Other Dairy Products in Pure Glass Bottles

Increasingly available in grocery stores and through traditional milkman delivery services, farm-fresh milk in glass bottles is making its way back into homes across the U.S. Several dairies, highlighted below, have introduced or reintroduced glass bottles for milk and other dairy products to meet consumer demand and environmental objectives.

“Packaging milk in glass is an American tradition and a decision that is proven to be healthy for you and the environment,” says Joseph Cattaneo, GPI president. “Glass is 100% pure, which protects the ‘farm-fresh’ taste of milk, and is 100% recyclable and reusable.”

In fact, researchers report a trend toward glass packaging as the first choice of consumers who say they care about the environment and their individual and family health*. Nearly 60% of consumers believe glass packaging is “best suited to a healthy lifestyle.” And while 83.1% of consumers think plastic containers have added chemicals, only 11.9% think glass does. And dairies are responding.

Traders Point Creamery, located in Zionsville, Indiana, packages its whole milk, chocolate milk, and yogurt in glass bottles. The company’s 100% grass-fed, certified organic Brown Swiss cows produce non-homogenized milk that is high in essential vitamins and minerals, and the European-style yogurt has been voted “America’s Best” by the American Cheese Society for the last two years. Traders Point Creamery is a strong believer in glass—it gives the consumer a pure product in an easily recycled package. More

PACKAGING TRENDS

Be Truly You with Inspirational, Reusable Glass Water Bottles

GPI recently spoke with Heather McDowell and Ann Cailoa, Founders of Be Truly You, a new company that offers eco-friendly and soul-friendly glass water bottles, and other products that encourage people to “be truly you.” Heather and Ann give us “a look inside” the brand, including why they chose glass for their line of inspirational water bottles, which are currently the company’s biggest seller. Listen to the podcast or Read the transcript

LEGISLATION

U.S. EPA Declares GHGs a Danger to Public Health

On December 7th, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson presented an “endangerment finding,” declaring that greenhouse gases (GHG) are a danger to public health. This decision may pave the way for the EPA to issue emissions regulations for a variety of industries, including the glass container and other energy-intensive trade exposed (EITE) industries.

Administrator Jackson’s announcement came as delegates from around the world began meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, to try and come to a global agreement on greenhouse gas reduction. In addition to the endangerment finding, EPA plans to move forward with a tailoring rule, which would require glass container facilities to install best available control technology on existing equipment, and any planned upgrades or modifications.  More

GLASS RECYCLING

Houston Certified Green Restaurant Serves up Dinner, Drinks, and Recycling

New Houston, TX restaurant, Ruggles Green, is serving up organic and natural food, as well as reducing its waste stream and recycling.

According to a report from KHOU-TV in Houston, one of the restaurants biggest waste streams is glass. They have two containers for glass as well as for cardboard. Restaurant partner Federico Marques reports, “If restaurants focused only on glass and cardboard and nothing else, they could probably reduce their landfill waste by half.”

Between glass bottles and cardboard, the restaurant recycles almost 80% of waste generated. In October 2009, glass bottles represented 53% of their recycling mix, with cardboard next at 25%. The glass is collected by Mark Austin of WeCANRecycle, who was featured in the June 2009 issue of GPI’s Inside Glass Packaging. Watch the video

CRI Study Shows Cost Impacts of Single-Stream Collection

A study commissioned by the Container Recycling Institute, and conducted by CM Consulting, “Understanding economic and environmental impact of single-stream collection systems,” highlights the negative downstream impacts of contaminated feedstock, a result of mixing recyclable materials through single-stream collection. This is especially true for glass containers.

According to CRI Executive Director Susan Collins, 'Once the materials are mixed together in a single-stream recycling system, there will be cross-contamination of materials and significant glass breakage. Those cross-contamination and breakage issues then result in increased costs for the secondary processors.'

According to the report, on average, 40% of glass from single-stream collection winds up in landfills, while 20% is small broken glass used for low-end applications. Only 40% is recycled into new glass containers and fiberglass. In contrast, mixed glass from dual-stream systems yields an average of 90% being recycled into containers and fiberglass, with 10% glass fines used for low-end applications, and nearly nothing sent to landfill. In container-deposit systems, color-sorted material results in 98% being recycled and only 2% marketed as glass fines. Get the report

Glass Bottle Recycling Raises Funds for Indiana Cub Scouts

A Cub Scout pack in Indiana is collecting nearly two tons of recycled glass a month from four restaurants and other businesses near the Dunkirk Saint-Gobain Container, Inc. plant, with the help of a plant employee. Rick Wayman, president of the local GMP union there, as well as the troop’s cub master, organized the effort that involves his grandson, Print Barger

“Saint-Gobain of Dunkirk has allowed me to use two cullet tubs, which I have mounted on a small trailer. Both tubs, when full hold approximately 800 to 900 pounds of cullet. We do collections once every few weeks, which produces two full tubs,” noted Wayman. He said a proposed expansion of the effort that would double the amount currently collected can be achieved by adding on two additional tubs and servicing three more businesses near the glass manufacturing location.

The scouts also collect other recyclables, with money raised from their sale going into the troop’s general fund. “The glass recycling component would not have been possible without the help of local plant management of SGCI at the Dunkirk location and the local leaders and scouts of Pack 37,” said Wayman, “so we’re grateful to them.”

1000 WORDS

Share Your Life with Glass

See how glass surrounds us in our everyday lives, providing a natural and pure way to care for us and our planet. Hear what “glass” has to say in this Vitro video