When that Bottle goes Empty?

It is generally taken for granted that a bottle is a narrow necked container turned out of glass …. But this is not to be so? There are bottles made of clay, plastic, metal etc. However out of all material it is glass that has been associated very much in bottle making ever since its invention. Glass is preferred for its inert properties against most corrosive liquids when in storage. 

What is glass? This again is interesting. It is not an element nor is it a mineral but a non-crystalline amorphous solid that is often transparent. Glass is made from liquid sand…when sand is heated to a temperature over 1700⁰ C it turns to liquid. When the molten sand cools, it doesn't turn back into that gritty yellow stuff called sand but undergoes a complete transformation and gains an entirely different inner structure. So then it could be said that glass itself is a super cooled liquid?

The place and date of the origins of glass manufacturing is not completely known. It is believed to be the Phoenician merchants who discovered glass for the first time in the region of present day Syria. The first glass bottles are thought to have been produced in South East Asia around 100 B.C.,. And the earliest glass bottles appeared in China, and later in places like Phoenicia or Bahrain, Crete, and Rome.

The World in Glasses

Ever since the Joseph Priestley discover the method to infuse carbon dioxide with water in around 1760, the carbonated mineral water industry caught up in a big way.  In the same way glass bottles that were needed to store and transport these drinks turned out became a promising industry.

Tom Standage’s book “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” discusses of six different drinks that are still found in our kitchens. Beer which is over 6000 years old produced by the Sumerian’s is still a popular drink. Wine produced from wild grapes by Paleolithic humans is old as beer or even older. Spirits or hard liquor particularly Brandy and Rum that pacified sailors during long sea voyages, played a crucial part in trade and dominated the Atlantic economy.  Coffee, first brewed in the Arabian Peninsula around A.D. 1000 was the alternative to alcohol, which is banned by Islam. Tea, was a daily drink in 3^rd century A.D China and a tea break for the British factory worker was more like fuel… on long and monotonous work shifts during the Industrial Revolution. Coca Cola the symbolic drink of the United States invented in 1886 by  pharmacist John Stith Pemberton ; initially said to have sold only nine bottles a day is now sold in a number of countries the world over. The number is above the UN’s member countries it is said.  Of all these six drinks that changed the world, other than for Coffee and Tea were stored in their customary glass bottles.

All of these six drinks did impact the world economy in a very effective manner. Beer, Spirits and Cola drinks depended on the glass bottle industry that turned out signature shapes for various brand names. Market prices competed with very fine markups and the cost of the drinks needed to be affordable. This was affectively managed with the reuse of the bottles that were washed clean and refilled and the pricing was only for its contents. This practice of refilling and reusing bottles continued until recent when finer financial planning showed disposable packaging costed much less compared to the cost incurred in washing plants. Ever since this change in containers in this consumerism world; our environment became a totally different place with so much plastic in and around our homes and now a major environmental hazard that has extended from land to the deep seas as well.

Consumer markets doubled in business with disposable packaging and the hassle free purchase over the counter not needing empties in return. On the one side sales doubled and this increase in sales did relate to over consumption of sugar. A new health hazard today.

Competition in the carbonated drinks that changed to plastic containers did not catchup with the Beer and the Spirits and is still preferred in their bottles. But again the need of a bottle for a purchase is no longer a requirement. Therefore every time you bought a bottle of spirit or beer now an empty bottle is collected in your home or in the outside environment.

Bottle Myths and When the Gods went Crazy

Empty bottles did play special roles in our social and cultural lives. Genies were supernatural spirits in the cultures of the Middle East and Africa. They a very much associated with bottles and lamps to which they are bound by magical powers and often related to three wishes in exchange for their release to freedom. The stories about these Genie bottles floating and bobbing in the seven seas are many. Then again there was the crazy rich who did not have heirs to their wealth stuffing their last wills in capped bottles tossed  into the oceans from luxury cruisers. There are stories of beachcombers who had been fortunate in locating them. 

An empty Coca Cola bottle thrown out of a private plane over the Kalahari Desert falls in to a most unusual location. Jamie Uys, the African film writer and nature lover wrote a lovely comedy which he directed himself to a box office hit by the name “The Gods Must Be Crazy”. The story of trash in delicate habitat that affect our cultures, society and life is very delicately highlighted in a lighter vein in this movie. This empty Coca Cola bottle picked up by a Kalahari Bushman takes it for a gift from God. It’s a tool in the household, a means of communication when blown in to, a toy to the kids and with many other uses finally turns out to be a disaster…. when he finds himself in an urban setup with that empty Coke bottle.

Just as that Coke bottle in the Kalahari the empty bottles today are a major environmental issue in our own homes and society with no place or value for its proper disposal. I’m sure every home has a stock of a few dozen empty bottles that came home with jams, sauces, pickles, cordials and spirits. Gone are the days that the “Goni Bothal“ and the “Parana Paththara” man visited us on a Sunday to collect them for a paltry sum  where he found a living being a collector to a large recycle network that prevailed twenty years back in this country. Today it is the plastics and the scrap metal that is sort after abd carry a value. The empty bottle has no value and is not welcome by any even for free.

I have tried to sneak them among the sorted plastics and polythene garbage into the municipal truck that come once a week…. but failed miserably. They always find the bottle and leave it behind.  My next plan was to transport them in a polysack in the boot of the car to the scrap metal yard away from town at dusk. Just as I was about to dump the polysack I see a sign saying the premises is under CCTV surveillance that forced me to carry them back home. 

With no luck at all…. I next went to the local float glass merchant in town to know how he disposes his off cuts. He reluctantly told me that he tips the municipal truck and they take it away god knows where to. I had no alternative but to ask how much my polysack of empty bottles is worth? The Municipal waste truck costed it for Rupees five hundred to which I agreed.  But I insisted to know how it is disposed. They would still take it to the polythene dump where people scavenge for a living. But they have instructions from the authorities not to collect glass for dumping.  I know it is not the proper way for its disposal ………. But again there should be an authorized way for its disposal shouldn't there?