Over the past 7 years, I have been reusing (not recycling) glass wine bottles from a variety of sources. This includes friends, family and the help of freecycle.org. This process has allowed me to successfully reuse approximately 2000 wine bottles. Since each wine bottle weighs approximately 1 lb, I had finally reached the milestone of 1 ton of reused glass. There are some benefits to this approach and let me highlight them:

Cost Savings

$2000 – New bottles are around $1 each, so I have saved myself and others this amount.

Environmental

1785 lbs of CO2 from not having to create 1 ton of new glass

1330 lbs of sand saved

433 lbs of soda ash

433 lbs of limestone

151 lbs of feldspar

15,000,000 BTUs – Glass furnaces require a lot of energy

Now, there are some costs to me in my processing of the bottles:

150 Miles of driving – approx. 120 lbs of CO2 produced and 5 gallons of gasoline

200 gallons of water – 20% hot water

Time – delabelling and triple rinsing/sanitizing takes time.

I’m proud of what I have done mainly for my wallet, but also for the environmental benefits. Let me also say that I plan on reusing these bottles forever, so each time they go through the reuse process, I’m increasing the benefits.