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Post by Weyland on Jan 18, 2011 14:23:49 GMT
Milk bottles are now almost the only sort of bottle that can be properly recycled, rather than being smashed up and reconstituted (at considerable cost) into something completely different. That alone is a good reason for getting your milk delivered. Beer bottles are certainly re-used in their billions in Holland, Belgium, and Germany, and probably most of the rest of the Continent as well. They carry a deposit, and every supermarket has a machine to count them and print out what you can get back at the check-out. Crates as well, and some plastic bottles. Then they go back to the brewery. That's been going on since the 1980s at least. That alone is a good reason for getting your beer delivered. Beer bottles and jam jars used to carry a deposit in Britain too. Once again we took the wrong fork in the road. I'm pretty sure some wine bottles are re-used on the Continent as well, especially the strong fizzy wine kind. I know they are in France. And some vegetable jars, at least in Holland. We think we're smart in the UK, but we're babes in the wood in the re-use/recycle game, lagging decades behind as usual, just as with the transport infrastructure, etc. I know who to blame for most of the rot. |
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Post by jean on Jan 18, 2011 14:40:55 GMT
[Beer bottles and jam jars used to carry a deposit in Britain too. Once again we took the wrong fork in the road. Yes, I remember it well. When I was living in Poland it quite took me back to find children knocking at my door to ask if I had any bottles for them to take back and claim the deposit on. (I recycle most of my old jam jars myself, for things liks jam, and pickled cabbage. I haven't much use for beer bottles - not even first time round.) |
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Post by Patrick on Jan 18, 2011 15:32:17 GMT
Milk bottles are now almost the only sort of bottle that can be properly recycled, rather than being smashed up and reconstituted (at considerable cost) into something completely different. That alone is a good reason for getting your milk delivered. I once heard that (some) recycled glass goes to be mixed with tarmac for road schemes - now there's a dilemma for the true green! (Had me confused for a bit too!) Manufacturers say it's too expensive for them to take bottles back and wash them for re-use. Or that's what they said when they stopped doing it. One would have thought that that could be adjusted through tax breaks or subsidized water bills in return for such a useful thing. Surely it's got to be better having lorries carrying something back from their deliveries too? All it takes is applying the right taxation - a bit like the idea of knocking VAT off of anything being repaired - this question was asked on the old petition site on the No10 website - it received the usual banal reply that basically meant "We are in the pocket of the electrical retailers and other manufacturers too much to even bother considering such a thing - Go and buy new NOW" |
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Post by Weyland on Jan 18, 2011 16:03:05 GMT
Manufacturers say it's too expensive for them to take bottles back and wash them for re-use. It's bollocks. Some countries never stopped doing it, and there are machines to streamline the whole process at the supermarket end, and have been for nearly thirty years to my knowledge. Modern ones can sort the bottles as they come in, take crates as well, and print a detailed list of refunds for the customer. Every brewer in Holland and Germany delivers full bottles and takes back empty ones in the same truck. Mineral water and soft-drink bottles as well, even some plastic ones. Germany has deposits on cans too. I don't know, but I imagine that the Nordic countries handle such matters even better. I notice that a lot of the bottle machines in Dutch supermarkets are made in Norway. Something has gone badly wrong with Britain in the re-use, recycle, and waste departments. If it wasn't for the EU we would still be doing virtually nothing. As it is, we're decades behind. Behind even the Americans. I saw people getting money back on bottles and cans in New York State in 1993. |
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Post by Weyland on Jan 18, 2011 16:20:17 GMT
I once heard that (some) recycled glass goes to be mixed with tarmac for road schemes I wouldn't be surprised. I've seen road surfaces that glitter in your headlights in Italian road tunnels -- such as the ones on the north bank of Lake Lugano. Might have been on the Swiss side of the border. I like it. Thought it was embedded glass, but someone told me it was probably mica. Jean might know. Jean? Do you get that thing where pieces of music remind you of particular places? Several Dire Straits tracks mean Lugano to me. Their best track of all, Planet of New Orleans, is Kielder Forest and Kielder Water in Northumberland. Their worst, the ironic but dreadful Twistin' by the Pool, is a campsite in Limousin -- it was always on at the snack-shack -- next to the pool. Anything by Gothic Voices is IBM in Amsterdam, because I used to play them when I was working alone of a weekend. Good for the concentration. Happy days, all of them. |
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Post by Patrick on Jan 18, 2011 20:22:53 GMT
I once heard that (some) recycled glass goes to be mixed with tarmac for road schemes I wouldn't be surprised. I've seen road surfaces that glitter in your headlights in Italian road tunnels -- such as the ones on the north bank of Lake Lugano. Might have been on the Swiss side of the border. I like it. Thought it was embedded glass, but someone told me it was probably mica. Jean might know. Jean? Do you get that thing where pieces of music remind you of particular places? Several Dire Straits tracks mean Lugano to me. Their best track of all, Planet of New Orleans, is Kielder Forest and Kielder Water in Northumberland. Their worst, the ironic but dreadful Twistin' by the Pool, is a campsite in Limousin -- it was always on at the snack-shack -- next to the pool. Anything by Gothic Voices is IBM in Amsterdam, because I used to play them when I was working alone of a weekend. Good for the concentration. Happy days, all of them. Most of the Brothers in Arms album takes me back to a warm sunny day lazing in a park in Hereford after a good pub lunch! |
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Post by Weyland on Jan 18, 2011 20:45:56 GMT
Most of the Brothers in Arms album takes me back to a warm sunny day lazing in a park in Hereford after a good pub lunch! Hereford! It's almost local for me, -ish. Nice little cathedral, beautiful Mappa Mundi! And museum. Nice walks along the Wye. Used to have a Dutch-speciality shop. I had a blind date with a lady in Hereford last year, but there was no chemistry whatsoever at all in any shape or form at all whatsoever totally. <shudder> Suggesting a pub lunch to her would have been like suggesting she strip off and sing "Hold a chicken in the air / Stick a deckchair up your nose" at the Grand Synod of the Church of Latterday Teetotal Evangelist Neuter Persons, in downtown Mecca. Please don't remind me again. |
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Post by Patrick on Jan 18, 2011 22:18:07 GMT
Still had plenty of independent shops in my time. You could buy huge chunks of home made pizza at the Italian ice cream parlour "Giovanni's Gelataria" and that accompanied with some cans of Budweiser made for a delightful al-fresco lunch down by the river. Giovannis is now the Carphone Warehouse.  |
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Post by riotgrrl on Jan 18, 2011 22:42:09 GMT
Still had plenty of independent shops in my time. You could buy huge chunks of home made pizza at the Italian ice cream parlour "Giovanni's Gelataria" and that accompanied with some cans of Budweiser made for a delightful al-fresco lunch down by the river. Giovannis is now the Carphone Warehouse. Patrick, you're 10 years younger than me! What's with this 'when I were a lad' schtick?  |
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Post by riotgrrl on Jan 18, 2011 22:44:00 GMT
I wouldn't be surprised. I've seen road surfaces that glitter in your headlights in Italian road tunnels -- such as the ones on the north bank of Lake Lugano. Might have been on the Swiss side of the border. I like it. Thought it was embedded glass, but someone told me it was probably mica. Jean might know. Jean? Do you get that thing where pieces of music remind you of particular places? Several Dire Straits tracks mean Lugano to me. Their best track of all, Planet of New Orleans, is Kielder Forest and Kielder Water in Northumberland. Their worst, the ironic but dreadful Twistin' by the Pool, is a campsite in Limousin -- it was always on at the snack-shack -- next to the pool. Anything by Gothic Voices is IBM in Amsterdam, because I used to play them when I was working alone of a weekend. Good for the concentration. Happy days, all of them. Most of the Brothers in Arms album takes me back to a warm sunny day lazing in a park in Hereford after a good pub lunch! I'm ashamed to say this, but it takes back to me puking in a lane outside a pub in Edinburgh after an evening political meeting. |
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Post by everso on Jan 18, 2011 22:50:19 GMT
Most of the Brothers in Arms album takes me back to a warm sunny day lazing in a park in Hereford after a good pub lunch! I'm ashamed to say this, but it takes back to me puking in a lane outside a pub in Edinburgh after an evening political meeting. I await a comment from Weyland claiming that it must have been a Tory party political meeting. |
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Post by Weyland on Jan 18, 2011 23:19:56 GMT
I'm ashamed to say this, but it takes back to me puking in a lane outside a pub in Edinburgh after an evening political meeting. I await a comment from Weyland claiming that it must have been a Tory party political meeting. You wound me, dear lady. Again.  I just assumed it was a routine response for a GlasVegan forced to spend money in Edinburgh. |
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Post by Patrick on Jan 18, 2011 23:23:16 GMT
Still had plenty of independent shops in my time. You could buy huge chunks of home made pizza at the Italian ice cream parlour "Giovanni's Gelataria" and that accompanied with some cans of Budweiser made for a delightful al-fresco lunch down by the river. Giovannis is now the Carphone Warehouse. Patrick, you're 10 years younger than me! What's with this 'when I were a lad' schtick? Worse than that - just four years younger and constantly looking backwards - Ouch! |
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Post by revisedartlily on Jan 21, 2011 10:07:18 GMT
Does this count? I ate a boiled egg once, while watching tele. WHILE WATCHING TELE. i.e. not looking IN the egg. Eventually I looked down at the egg and it was all bloody and horrid. I have to go and drink acid or something now, the memory still haunts me. |
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Post by Weyland on Jan 21, 2011 11:21:34 GMT
Does this count? I ate a boiled egg once, while watching tele. WHILE WATCHING TELE. i.e. not looking IN the egg. Eventually I looked down at the egg and it was all bloody and horrid. I have to go and drink acid or something now, the memory still haunts me. My sister once did that. There were bones in the egg. The phrase "projectile vomit" pretty well sums it up. It missed me, just. My egg was fine. |
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Post by aubrey on Jan 21, 2011 20:23:32 GMT
I'm gypping just thinking of that. Oh, no. Could you finish your egg though, Weyland?
My disgusting story (concocted before I looked at this) seems pretty tame now.
Anyway. It is about tea, so I'll do it.
Danny Baker once had a thing about I think it was his wife making a cup of tea, thusly:
First she got the cup, and put a tea bag in it. Then she added milk. Then water, from the hot tap.
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Post by Weyland on Jan 21, 2011 20:31:52 GMT
I'm gypping just thinking of that. Oh, no. Could you finish your egg though, Weyland? No problem, Aub. After I stopped giggling quietly. (I made the giggling bit up.)That is disgusting, but at least she did put the milk in first. |
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Post by revisedartlily on Jan 21, 2011 22:30:42 GMT
Aubrey, that is the most slatternly way of making tea I have ever heard. Poor man!! I bet it tasted disgusting. The only worse way would have been to use water from the hot water bottle. |
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Post by jean on Jan 21, 2011 22:58:35 GMT
I remember when I was in a flat as a student and we couldn't afford to heat the water, I used to use the water from the hot water bottle to get washed in in the morning.
But I don't think I ever drank it.
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Post by aubrey on Jan 22, 2011 10:06:13 GMT
That hot water bottle thing is a good idea. I put them under the cat.
Lily - the tea was for herself; Danny wouldn't have touched it. But it sounds like the tea you get from Starbucks.
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