Wine bottle recycliing

Mar 27, 2025 Last reply: 1 year ago 8 Replies

I sometime go to a local vineyard and I always give them whatever bottles I've accumulated. They sterilize and reuse. They have some interesting information about the bottles on their web page. General page

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Recycling page
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recycling Wine Bottles We take 750 ml. wine bottles and 12 oz (355 ml.) beer bottles in all shapes and colors.



Did you know that more than 300 million cases of wine are sold in the United States each year? An estimated 70% of these wine bottles end up in our local landfills (per the EPA) and for every ton of glass that we have to replace, 384 lb. of mining waste is created. For every ton of glass that we have to replace, we have to use 1,330 lb. of sand, 433 lb. of soda ash, 433 lb. of limestone, 30 lb. of air pollution and 151 lb. of feldspar.



Glass wine and beer bottles never wear out and they can be recycled and reused forever. By only using recycled wine and beer bottles, we have reduced our carbon footprint by a whopping 60%!


Not really forever. Back-in-the-day some areas in Canada had a beer bottle deposit-return-refill program - it went on for several decades - - I think the stubbies were re-used about 10 times ..

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John T.

I remember that from the '70s. At least in Ontario there was a law that all the bottlers had to use the same bottles so they could be interchanged. Calgary Export tried to get fancy with bottles that looked like little kegs and got shot down.

Probably also history but there were men only beer halls. The waiter would come around with a tray of glasses and had a change machine on his belt. They were great since you could go in sweaty and dirty after a day's work setting up machinery and relax without any flirting and so forth.

Yep. The "Men's" or "Beverage" Room was quite sparse compared to the " Lounge " with its carpeting and plush seating and nice lighting and live entertainment on Friday & Saturday night. .. and the beverage room was far less concerned about checking ID for us young bucks. I remember 20 - 25 cents a glass as a teenager when the drinking age went from 21 to 18. John T.

Do they wear out? Do we really need more of the damn things? Do we need the ages old marketing bullshit? I bought 4 Female USB C to male USB micro adapters today from Amazon for $6.99. Would I have balked at $7.00?

Then I went to the local REI for a new pair of boots. $219.95. Let's get rid of nickels too. They cost more to make than they're worth and who really gives a damn about five cents?

The only place I can see it getting complicated is when I buy little screws or other things at the hardware store that might be 3 cents apiece.

Sure, but do you every buy one screw? Or two for 6 cents? Most times while there you buy a roll of tape or tube of caulk and it comes to $8.67 so you round to $8.70

I wonder how many pennies are sitting in a jar for years on end.

This guy saved them for 45 years

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15 five gallon jugs? No wonder he needed a crew to do the transfer. I throw all my change into 3# cottage cheese buckets. I never weighed a full one but it's a lot more than three pounds. Periodically I run them through a CoinStar machine and get an Amazon gift card, usually a couple of hundred bucks.

When I was trucking in the '90s I hauled pennies from the Denver mint to SF, around 43,000 pounds worth. iirc they didn't even bother to throw a seal on the trailer. They don't get serious until you haul quarters. The company had a special rig with an armored tractor and the trailer disguised as a reefer. I never hauled anything besides pennies so I don't know at what denomination you get an escort.

That's a different issue.

I'm not arguing we should keep the penny, just that the fact it costs more than a penny to make doesn't matter.

Most of the change I get ends up in a big jar anyway, and eventually gets run through a Coinstar machine for Amazon credit. Once in a great while I pay in exact change to keep up my old-lady street cred. I mostly pay with a credit card anyway.

A lot of poor people know that a penny saved is a penny earned.

3 for 10 cents. Are baby food jars still glass? I remember my grandfather used them to store oddments of hardware. My husband has drawers with fancy-shmancy storage boxes.

How much did the story's hero lose in interest (and inflation) by not investing the pennies in an index fund for the last 45 years?

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