Reuse of bottles facts for kids
A reusable bottle is a bottle you can use again and again! Instead of throwing them away after one use, you clean them and fill them up with drinks or other liquids. People like reusable bottles because they are better for our planet and can be safer for our health. They are a great example of reusable packaging.
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Bottles Through Time
Long ago, many glass bottles were made to be used more than once. Think about old milk bottles, water bottles, or even special Mason jars used for canning food at home.
In the past, stores would collect empty bottles from customers. These bottles were then sent back to the company that filled them. A milkman would even pick up empty glass milk bottles from your doorstep! At the factory, these bottles were checked for damage, cleaned very carefully, and then refilled with new drinks.
But in the last half of the 1900s, many companies started making bottles that were only meant to be used once. This made bottles cheaper to make, often using thinner glass or plastic bottles and aluminum beverage cans.
Laws for Returning Bottles
To help with the problem of too much trash from single-use containers, many places started "container deposit" laws. This began in the 1970s. These laws mean that when you buy a drink, you pay a small extra fee, called a deposit. When you finish the drink, you can return the empty bottle or can to the store. The store then gives you your deposit money back!
Special machines called Reverse vending machines often help with this. They scan the bar code on your bottle to make sure it's one you paid a deposit for. Then, they might crush the container to save space and give you cash or a ticket for your money back.
For example, in Germany, you can find many reusable glass or plastic bottles for drinks like beer and fizzy water. The deposit for these reusable bottles is usually small, like 8 to 15 cents. This is less than the 25 cents you pay for bottles that are recycled but not refilled. One famous reusable bottle in Germany is the Normbrunnenflasche, a 0.7-liter bottle used for fizzy drinks. It has been refilled billions of times since it was first used in 1969!
Why Reusable Bottles Help Our Planet
Using containers more than once is a big step towards making our world more sustainable. This idea is part of the "waste hierarchy," which shows the best ways to manage trash. Reusing things is very high on this list, meaning it's one of the best choices we can make. When a bottle is used many times, we need less new material to make bottles overall.
Scientists often study how reusable and single-use systems affect the environment. They look at many things, like how much energy is used to make, clean, and transport bottles. These studies show that it's a complex topic, but reusing often has many benefits.
There are strong reasons to reuse bottles or recycle them into new products. For example, in the U.S., people use about 1,500 plastic water bottles every second! But only about 23% of the plastic used in these bottles, called PET plastic, gets recycled. This means billions of water bottles are thrown away each year. Using reusable bottles helps save money and reduces a lot of plastic waste.
Reusable Bottles for Everyday Use
In recent years, many people have started using their own reusable drinking bottles. These bottles can hold water, coffee, soup, baby formula, and other drinks. They have become popular because of the costs and environmental problems linked to single-use plastic bottles.
Reusable bottles are made from different materials like glass, aluminum, stainless steel, and plastic. Some bottles have special insulation to keep drinks hot or cold. Even some baby bottles now have an inner bag that can be changed after each use, making them easier to clean.
