Baler
A baler, most called a hay baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop into compact bales that are easy to handle and store. Bales are configured to dry and preserve some intrinsic value of the plants bundled. Several different types of balers are used, each producing a different type of bale – rectangular or cylindrical, of various sizes, bound with twine, netting, or wire. Industrial balers are used in material recycling facilities for baling metal, plastic, or paper for transport. Before the 19th century, hay was cut by hand and most stored in haystacks using hay forks to rake and gather the scythed grasses into optimal sized heaps — neither too large, nor too small, so much of the pile is susceptible to rotting; these haystacks lifted most of the plant fibers up off the ground, letting air in and water drain out, so the grasses could dry and cure, to retain nutrition for livestock feed at a time. In the 1860s, mechanical cutting devices were developed. In 1872, a reaper that used a knotter device to bundle and bind hay was invented by Charles Withington.
In 1936, Innes invented an automatic baler that tied bales with twine using Appleby-type knotters from a John Deere grain binder. The first round baler was invented in the late 19th century and one was shown in Paris by Pilter; this was a portable machine designed for use with threshing machines. The most common type of baler in industrialized countries today is the round baler, it produces "rolled" bales. The design has a "thatched roof" effect. Grass is rolled up inside the baler using rubberized belts, fixed rollers, or a combination of the two; when the bale reaches a predetermined size, either netting or twine is wrapped around it to hold its shape. The back of the baler swings open, the bale is discharged; the bales are complete at this stage, but they may be wrapped in plastic sheeting by a bale wrapper, either to keep hay dry when stored outside or convert damp grass into silage. Variable-chamber large round balers produce bales from 48 to 72 inches in diameter and up to 60 inches in width.
The bales can weigh anywhere from 1,100 to 2,200 pounds, depending upon size and moisture content. Common modern small round balers produce bales 20 to 22 inches in diameter and 20.5 to 28 inches in width weighing from 40 to 55 pounds. Conceived by Ummo Luebben circa 1910, the first round baler did not see production until 1947 when Allis-Chalmers introduced the Roto-Baler. Marketed for the water-shedding and light weight properties of its hay bales, AC had sold nearly 70,000 units by the end of production in 1960; the next major innovation began in 1965 when a graduate student at Iowa State University, Virgil Haverdink, sought out Wesley F. Buchele, a professor of Agricultural Engineering, seeking a research topic for a master thesis. Over the next year Buchele and Haverdink developed a new design for a large round baler and tested in 1966, thereafter dubbed the Buchele-Haverdink large round baler; the large round bales were about 1.5 meters in diameter, 2 meters long, they weighed about 270 kilograms after they dried—about 80 kg/m3.
The design was promoted as a "Whale of a Bale" and Iowa State University now explains the innovative design as follows: "Farmers were saved from the backbreaking chore of slinging hay bales in the 1960s, when Iowa State agricultural engineering professor Wesley Buchele and a group of student researchers invented a baler that produced large, round bales that could be moved by tractor. The baler has become the predominant forage-handling machine in the United States." In the summer of 1969, the Australian Econ Fodder Roller baler came out, a design that made a 135 kg ground-rolled bale. In September of that same year, The Hawkbilt Company of Vinton, contacted Dr. Buchele about his design fabricated a large ground-rolling round baler which baled hay, laid out in a windrow, began manufacturing large round balers in 1970. In 1972, Gary Vermeer of Pella, Iowa and fabricated a round baler after the design of the A-C Roto-Baler, the Vermeer Company began selling its model 605 - the first modern round baler.
The Vermeer design used belts to compact hay into a cylindrical shape. In the early 1980s, collaboration between Walterscheid and Vermeer produced the first effective uses of CV joints in balers, in other farm machinery. Due to the heavy torque required for such equipment, double Cardan joints are used. Former Walterscheid engineer Martin Brown is credited with "inventing" this use for universal joints. By 1975, fifteen American and Canadian companies were manufacturing large round balers. Due to the ability for round bales to roll away on a slope, they require specific treatment for safe transport and handling. Small round bales can be moved by hand or with lower-powered equipment. Large round bales, due to their size and weight require moving equipment; the most important tool for large round bale handling is
Abrasive
An abrasive is a material a mineral, used to shape or finish a workpiece through rubbing which leads to part of the workpiece being worn away by friction. While finishing a material means polishing it to gain a smooth, reflective surface, the process can involve roughening as in satin, matte or beaded finishes. In short, the ceramics which are used to cut and polish other softer materials are known as abrasives. Abrasives are commonplace and are used extensively in a wide variety of industrial and technological applications; this gives rise to a large variation in the physical and chemical composition of abrasives as well as the shape of the abrasive. Some common uses for abrasives include grinding, buffing, cutting, sharpening and sanding. Files are not abrasives. However, diamond files are a form of coated abrasive. Abrasives rely upon a difference in hardness between the abrasive and the material being worked upon, the abrasive being the harder of the two substances. However, is not necessary as any two solid materials that rub against each other will tend to wear each other away.
Materials used as abrasives are either hard minerals or are synthetic stones, some of which may be chemically and physically identical to occurring minerals but which cannot be called minerals as they did not arise naturally. Diamond, a common abrasive, for instance occurs both and is industrially produced, as is corundum which occurs but, nowadays more manufactured from bauxite; however softer minerals like calcium carbonate are used as abrasives, such as "polishing agents" in toothpaste. These minerals are either crushed or are of a sufficiently small size to permit their use as an abrasive; these grains called grit, have rough edges terminating in points which will decrease the surface area in contact and increase the localised contact pressure. The abrasive and the material to be worked are brought into contact while in relative motion to each other. Force applied through the grains causes fragments of the worked material to break away, while smoothing the abrasive grain and/or causing the grain to work loose from the rest of the abrasive.
Some factors which will affect how a substance is abraded include: Difference in hardness between the two substances: a much harder abrasive will cut faster and deeper Grain size: larger grains will cut faster as they cut deeper Adhesion between grains, between grains and backing, between grains and matrix: determines how grains are lost from the abrasive and how soon fresh grains, if present, are exposed Contact force: more force will cause faster abrasion Loading: worn abrasive and cast off work material tends to fill spaces between abrasive grains so reducing cutting efficiency while increasing friction Use of lubricant/coolant/metalworking fluid: Can carry away swarf, transport heat, decrease friction, suspend worn work material and abrasives allowing for a finer finish, conduct stress to the workpiece. Abrasives may be classified as either synthetic; when discussing sharpening stones, natural stones have long been considered superior but advances in material technology are seeing this distinction become less distinct.
Many synthetic abrasives are identical to a natural mineral, differing only in that the synthetic mineral has been manufactured rather than mined. Impurities in the natural mineral may make it less effective; some occurring abrasives are: Calcite Emery Diamond dust Novaculite Pumice Iron oxide Sand Corundum Garnet Sandstone Tripoli Powdered feldspar StauroliteSome abrasive minerals occur but are sufficiently rare or sufficiently more difficult or costly to obtain such that a synthetic stone is used industrially. These and other artificial abrasives include: Borazon Ceramic Ceramic aluminium oxide Ceramic iron oxide Corundum Dry ice Glass powder Steel abrasive Silicon carbide Zirconia alumina Boron carbide Slags Abrasives are shaped for various purposes. Natural abrasives are sold as dressed stones in the form of a rectangular block. Both natural and synthetic abrasives are available in a wide variety of shapes coming as bonded or coated abrasives, including blocks, discs, sheets and loose grains.
A bonded abrasive is composed of an abrasive material contained within a matrix, although fine aluminium oxide abrasive may comprise sintered material. This matrix is called a binder and is a clay, a resin, a glass or a rubber; this mixture of binder and abrasive is typic
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol, carbon dioxide, heat. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts produce different styles of wine; these variations result from the complex interactions between the biochemical development of the grape, the reactions involved in fermentation, the terroir, the production process. Many countries enact legal appellations intended to define qualities of wine; these restrict the geographical origin and permitted varieties of grapes, as well as other aspects of wine production. Wines not made from grapes include rice wine and fruit wines such as plum, pomegranate and elderberry. Wine has been produced for thousands of years; the earliest known traces of wine are from Georgia and Sicily although there is evidence of a similar alcoholic drink being consumed earlier in China. The earliest known winery is the 6,100-year-old Areni-1 winery in Armenia. Wine reached the Balkans by 4500 BC and was consumed and celebrated in ancient Greece and Rome.
Throughout history, wine has been consumed for its intoxicating effects. Wine has long played an important role in religion. Red wine was associated with blood by the ancient Egyptians and was used by both the Greek cult of Dionysus and the Romans in their Bacchanalia; the earliest archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence for grape wine and viniculture, dating to 6000–5800 BC was found on the territory of modern Georgia. Both archaeological and genetic evidence suggest that the earliest production of wine elsewhere was later having taken place in the Southern Caucasus, or the West Asian region between Eastern Turkey, northern Iran; the earliest evidence of a grape-based fermented drink was found in China, Georgia from 6000 BC, Iran from 5000 BC, Sicily from 4000 BC. The earliest evidence of a wine production facility is the Areni-1 winery in Armenia and is at least 6100 years old. A 2003 report by archaeologists indicates a possibility that grapes were mixed with rice to produce mixed fermented drinks in China in the early years of the seventh millennium BC.
Pottery jars from the Neolithic site of Jiahu, contained traces of tartaric acid and other organic compounds found in wine. However, other fruits indigenous to the region, such as hawthorn, cannot be ruled out. If these drinks, which seem to be the precursors of rice wine, included grapes rather than other fruits, they would have been any of the several dozen indigenous wild species in China, rather than Vitis vinifera, introduced there 6000 years later; the spread of wine culture westwards was most due to the Phoenicians who spread outward from a base of city-states along the Mediterranean coast of what are today Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. The wines of Byblos were exported to Egypt during the Old Kingdom and throughout the Mediterranean. Evidence includes two Phoenician shipwrecks from 750 BC discovered by Robert Ballard, whose cargo of wine was still intact; as the first great traders in wine, the Phoenicians seem to have protected it from oxidation with a layer of olive oil, followed by a seal of pinewood and resin, similar to retsina.
Although the nuragic Sardinians consumed wine before the arrival of the Phoenicians The earliest remains of Apadana Palace in Persepolis dating back to 515 BC include carvings depicting soldiers from Achaemenid Empire subject nations bringing gifts to the Achaemenid king, among them Armenians bringing their famous wine. Literary references to wine are abundant in Homer and others. In ancient Egypt, six of 36 wine amphoras were found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun bearing the name "Kha'y", a royal chief vintner. Five of these amphoras were designated as originating from the king's personal estate, with the sixth from the estate of the royal house of Aten. Traces of wine have been found in central Asian Xinjiang in modern-day China, dating from the second and first millennia BC; the first known mention of grape-based wines in India is from the late 4th-century BC writings of Chanakya, the chief minister of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. In his writings, Chanakya condemns the use of alcohol while chronicling the emperor and his court's frequent indulgence of a style of wine known as madhu.
The ancient Romans planted vineyards near garrison towns so wine could be produced locally rather than shipped over long distances. Some of these areas are now world-renowned for wine production; the Romans discovered that burning sulfur candles inside empty wine vessels kept them fresh and free from a vinegar smell. In medieval Europe, the Roman Catholic Church supported wine because the clergy required it for the Mass. Monks in France made wine for years. An old English recipe that survived in various forms until the 19th century calls for refining white wine from bastard—bad or tainted bastardo wine; the English word "wine" comes from the Proto-Germanic *winam, an early borrowing from the Latin vinum, "wine" or " vine", itself derived from the Proto-Indo-European stem *win-o-. The earliest attested terms referring to wine are the Mycenaean Greek me-tu-wo ne-wo, meaning "in" or " of the new wine", wo-no-wa-ti-si, meaning "wine garden", written in Linear B inscriptions. Linear B includes, inter alia, an ideogram for wine
Metal
A metal is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, conducts electricity and heat well. Metals are malleable or ductile. A metal may be an alloy such as stainless steel. In physics, a metal is regarded as any substance capable of conducting electricity at a temperature of absolute zero. Many elements and compounds that are not classified as metals become metallic under high pressures. For example, the nonmetal iodine becomes a metal at a pressure of between 40 and 170 thousand times atmospheric pressure; some materials regarded as metals can become nonmetals. Sodium, for example, becomes a nonmetal at pressure of just under two million times atmospheric pressure. In chemistry, two elements that would otherwise qualify as brittle metals—arsenic and antimony—are instead recognised as metalloids, on account of their predominately non-metallic chemistry. Around 95 of the 118 elements in the periodic table are metals; the number is inexact as the boundaries between metals and metalloids fluctuate due to a lack of universally accepted definitions of the categories involved.
In astrophysics the term "metal" is cast more to refer to all chemical elements in a star that are heavier than the lightest two and helium, not just traditional metals. A star fuses lighter atoms hydrogen and helium, into heavier atoms over its lifetime. Used in that sense, the metallicity of an astronomical object is the proportion of its matter made up of the heavier chemical elements. Metals are present in many aspects of modern life; the strength and resilience of some metals has led to their frequent use in, for example, high-rise building and bridge construction, as well as most vehicles, many home appliances, tools and railroad tracks. Precious metals were used as coinage, but in the modern era, coinage metals have extended to at least 23 of the chemical elements; the history of metals is thought to begin with the use of copper about 11,000 years ago. Gold, iron and brass were in use before the first known appearance of bronze in the 5th millennium BCE. Subsequent developments include the production of early forms of steel.
Metals are lustrous, at least when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured. Sheets of metal thicker than a few micrometres appear opaque; the solid or liquid state of metals originates in the capacity of the metal atoms involved to lose their outer shell electrons. Broadly, the forces holding an individual atom’s outer shell electrons in place are weaker than the attractive forces on the same electrons arising from interactions between the atoms in the solid or liquid metal; the electrons involved become delocalised and the atomic structure of a metal can be visualised as a collection of atoms embedded in a cloud of mobile electrons. This type of interaction is called a metallic bond; the strength of metallic bonds for different elemental metals reaches a maximum around the center of the transition metal series, as these elements have large numbers of delocalized electrons. Although most elemental metals have higher densities than most nonmetals, there is a wide variation in their densities, lithium being the least dense and osmium the most dense.
Magnesium and titanium are light metals of significant commercial importance. Their respective densities of 1.7, 2.7 and 4.5 g/cm3 can be compared to those of the older structural metals, like iron at 7.9 and copper at 8.9 g/cm3. An iron ball would thus weigh about as much as three aluminium balls. Metals are malleable and ductile, deforming under stress without cleaving; the nondirectional nature of metallic bonding is thought to contribute to the ductility of most metallic solids. In contrast, in an ionic compound like table salt, when the planes of an ionic bond slide past one another, the resultant change in location shifts ions of the same charge into close proximity, resulting in the cleavage of the crystal; such a shift is not observed in a covalently bonded crystal, such as a diamond, where fracture and crystal fragmentation occurs. Reversible elastic deformation in metals can be described by Hooke's Law for restoring forces, where the stress is linearly proportional to the strain. Heat or forces larger than a metal's elastic limit may cause a permanent deformation, known as plastic deformation or plasticity.
An applied force may be a compressive force, or a shear, bending or torsion force. A temperature change may affect the movement or displacement of structural defects in the metal such as grain boundaries, point vacancies and screw dislocations, stacking faults and twins in both crystalline and non-crystalline metals. Internal slip and metal fatigue may ensue; the atoms of metallic substances are arranged in one of three common crystal structures, namely body-centered cubic, face-centered cubic, hexagonal close-packed. In bcc, each atom is positioned at the center of a cube of eight others. In fcc and hcp, each atom is surrounded by twelve others; some metals adopt different structures depending on the temperature. The
Ceramic
A ceramic is a solid material comprising an inorganic compound of metal, non-metal or metalloid atoms held in ionic and covalent bonds. Common examples are earthenware and brick; the crystallinity of ceramic materials ranges from oriented to semi-crystalline and completely amorphous. Most fired ceramics are either vitrified or semi-vitrified as is the case with earthenware and porcelain. Varying crystallinity and electron composition in the ionic and covalent bonds cause most ceramic materials to be good thermal and electrical insulators. With such a large range of possible options for the composition/structure of a ceramic, the breadth of the subject is vast, identifiable attributes are difficult to specify for the group as a whole. General properties such as high melting temperature, high hardness, poor conductivity, high moduli of elasticity, chemical resistance and low ductility are the norm, with known exceptions to each of these rules. Many composites, such as fiberglass and carbon fiber, while containing ceramic materials, are not considered to be part of the ceramic family.
The earliest ceramics made by humans were pottery objects or figurines made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials like silica and sintered in fire. Ceramics were glazed and fired to create smooth, colored surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, amorphous ceramic coatings on top of the crystalline ceramic substrates. Ceramics now include domestic and building products, as well as a wide range of ceramic art. In the 20th century, new ceramic materials were developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering, such as in semiconductors; the word "ceramic" comes from the Greek word κεραμικός, "of pottery" or "for pottery", from κέραμος, "potter's clay, pottery". The earliest known mention of the root "ceram-" is the Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-me-we, "workers of ceramics", written in Linear B syllabic script; the word "ceramic" may be used as an adjective to describe a material, product or process, or it may be used as a noun, either singular, or, more as the plural noun "ceramics".
A ceramic material is an inorganic, non-metallic crystalline oxide, nitride or carbide material. Some elements, such as carbon or silicon, may be considered ceramics. Ceramic materials are brittle, strong in compression, weak in shearing and tension, they withstand chemical erosion that occurs in other materials subjected to acidic or caustic environments. Ceramics can withstand high temperatures, ranging from 1,000 °C to 1,600 °C. Glass is not considered a ceramic because of its amorphous character. However, glassmaking involves several steps of the ceramic process, its mechanical properties are similar to ceramic materials. Traditional ceramic raw materials include clay minerals such as kaolinite, whereas more recent materials include aluminium oxide, more known as alumina; the modern ceramic materials, which are classified as advanced ceramics, include silicon carbide and tungsten carbide. Both are valued for their abrasion resistance and hence find use in applications such as the wear plates of crushing equipment in mining operations.
Advanced ceramics are used in the medicine, electronics industries and body armor. Crystalline ceramic materials are not amenable to a great range of processing. Methods for dealing with them tend to fall into one of two categories – either make the ceramic in the desired shape, by reaction in situ, or by "forming" powders into the desired shape, sintering to form a solid body. Ceramic forming techniques include shaping by hand, slip casting, tape casting, injection molding, dry pressing, other variations. Noncrystalline ceramics, being glass, tend to be formed from melts; the glass is shaped when either molten, by casting, or when in a state of toffee-like viscosity, by methods such as blowing into a mold. If heat treatments cause this glass to become crystalline, the resulting material is known as a glass-ceramic used as cook-tops and as a glass composite material for nuclear waste disposal; the physical properties of any ceramic substance are a direct result of its crystalline structure and chemical composition.
Solid-state chemistry reveals the fundamental connection between microstructure and properties such as localized density variations, grain size distribution, type of porosity and second-phase content, which can all be correlated with ceramic properties such as mechanical strength σ by the Hall-Petch equation, toughness, dielectric constant, the optical properties exhibited by transparent materials. Ceramography is the art and science of preparation and evaluation of ceramic microstructures. Evaluation and characterization of ceramic microstructures is implemented on similar spatial scales to that used in the emerging field of nanotechnology: from tens of angstroms to tens of micrometers; this is somewhere between the minimum wavelength of visible light and the resolution limit of the naked eye. The microstructure includes most grains, secondary phases, grain boundaries, micro-
Construction aggregate
Construction aggregate, or "aggregate", is a broad category of coarse to medium grained particulate material used in construction, including sand, crushed stone, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are the most mined materials in the world. Aggregates are a component of composite materials such as asphalt concrete. Due to the high hydraulic conductivity value as compared to most soils, aggregates are used in drainage applications such as foundation and French drains, septic drain fields, retaining wall drains, roadside edge drains. Aggregates are used as base material under foundations and railroads. In other words, aggregates are used as a stable foundation or road/rail base with predictable, uniform properties, or as a low-cost extender that binds with more expensive cement or asphalt to form concrete. Preferred bituminous aggregate sizes for road construction are given in EN 13043 as d/D; the same classification sizing is used for larger armour stone sizes in EN 13383, EN 12620 for concrete aggregate, EN 13242 for base layers of road construction and EN 13450 for railway ballast.
The American Society for Testing and Materials publishes an exhaustive listing of specifications including ASTM D 692 and ASTM D 1073 for various construction aggregate products, which, by their individual design, are suitable for specific construction purposes. These products include specific types of coarse and fine aggregate designed for such uses as additives to asphalt and concrete mixes, as well as other construction uses. State transportation departments further refine aggregate material specifications in order to tailor aggregate use to the needs and available supply in their particular locations. Sources for these basic materials can be grouped into three main areas: Mining of mineral aggregate deposits, including sand and stone. In addition, there are some materials that are used as specialty lightweight aggregates: clay, pumice and vermiculite. People have used stone for foundations for thousands of years. Significant refinement of the production and use of aggregate occurred during the Roman Empire, which used aggregate to build its vast network of roads and aqueducts.
The invention of concrete, essential to architecture utilizing arches, created an immediate, permanent demand for construction aggregates. Vitruvius writes in De architectura: Economy denotes the proper management of materials and of site, as well as a thrifty balancing of cost and common sense in the construction of works; this will be observed if, in the first place, the architect does not demand things which cannot be found or made ready without great expense. For example: it is not everywhere that there is plenty of pit-sand, fir, clear fir, marble... Where there is no pit sand, we must use the kinds washed up by rivers or by the sea... and other problems we must solve in similar ways. The advent of modern blasting methods enabled the development of quarries, which are now used throughout the world, wherever competent bedrock deposits of aggregate quality exist. In many places, good limestone, marble or other quality stone bedrock deposits do not exist. In these areas, natural sand and gravel are mined for use as aggregate.
Where neither stone, nor sand and gravel, are available, construction demand is satisfied by shipping in aggregate by rail, barge or truck. Additionally, demand for aggregates can be satisfied through the use of slag and recycled concrete. However, the available tonnages and lesser quality of these materials prevent them from being a viable replacement for mined aggregates on a large scale. Large stone quarry and sand and gravel operations exist near all population centers due to the high cost of transportation relative to the low value of the product. Trucking aggregate more than 40 kilometers is uneconomical; these are capital-intensive operations, utilizing large earth-moving equipment, belt conveyors, machines designed for crushing and separating various sizes of aggregate, to create distinct product stockpiles. According to the USGS, 2006 U. S. crushed stone production was 1.72 billion tonnes valued at $13.8 billion, of which limestone was 1,080 million tonnes valued at $8.19 billion from 1,896 quarries, granite was 268 million tonnes valued at $2.59 billion from 378 quarries, traprock was 148 million tonnes valued at $1.04 billion from 355 quarries, the balance other kinds of stone from 729 quarries.
Limestone and granite are produced in large amounts as dimension stone. The great majority of crushed stone is moved by heavy truck from the quarry/plant to the first point of sale or use. According to the USGS, 2006 U. S. sand and gravel production was 1.32 billion tonnes valued at $8.54 billion, of which 264 million tonnes valued at $1.92 billion was used as concrete aggregates. The great majority of this was again moved by truck, instead of by electric train. Total U. S. aggregate demand by final market sector was 30%–35% for non-residential building, 25% for highways, 25% for housing. The largest-volume of recycled material used
Reuse of bottles
A reusable bottle is a bottle that can be reused, as in the case as by the original bottler or by end-use consumers. Reusable bottles have grown in popularity by consumers for both environmental and health safety reasons. Reusable bottles are one example of reusable packaging. Early glass bottles were reused, such as for milk, beer, soft drinks and other uses. Mason jars, for example, were reused for home canning purposes. With returnable bottles, a retailer would collect empty bottles or would accept empty bottles returned by customers. Bottles would be returned to the bottler in reusable cases or crates. Glass milk bottles would be picked up by a milkman. At the bottler, the bottles would be inspected for damage, cleaned and refilled. Beginning in the second half of the 20th century, many bottles were designed for single-use, eliminating the cost of collection; this allows for thinner glass bottles and less expensive plastic bottles and aluminum beverage cans. Though Sweden has had a standard glass bottle recycling system since 1884, in response to the increased litter from single-use containers, container deposit laws have been adopted in many developed countries starting in the 1970s.
These laws mandate that retailers must charge a deposit on certain types of containers or for certain products. A government fund mediates any imbalances caused by buying containers at one retailer and returning them to another, retains the profit from unreturned containers. Reverse vending machines are used to automate this process; the machines scan the bar code on cans and bottles to verify that a deposit was paid, shred or crush the container for compact storage, dispense cash or a voucher that can be redeemed at the store's checkout registers. In Germany, reusable glass or plastic bottles are available for many drinks beer and carbonated water as well as soft drinks; the deposit per bottle is €0.08-€0.15, compared to €0.25 for recyclable but not reusable plastic bottles. There is no deposit for glass bottles. In 2019, TerraCycle announced a subscription box program called Loop, which would distribute food, household cleaners, personal care products in reusable plastic and metal bottles that would be returned to the company once empty.
The reuse of containers is thought of as being a step toward more sustainable packaging. Reuse sits high on the waste hierarchy; when a container is used multiple times, the material required per use or per filling cycle is reduced. Many potential factors are involved in environmental comparisons of returnable vs. non-returnable systems. Researchers have used life cycle analysis methodologies to balance the many diverse considerations; some comparisons show no clear winner but rather show a realistic view of a complex subject. Arguments in favor of reusing bottles, or recycling them into other products, are compelling, it is estimated that in the U. S. alone, consumers use 1,500 plastic water bottles every single second. But only about 23% of PET plastic, the plastic used in disposable plastic water bottles, gets recycled. Thus, about 38 billion water bottles are thrown away annually, equating to $1 billion worth of plastic; the average American spends $242 per year per person on disposable, single use plastic water bottles.
The environmental and cost consequences associated with disposable plastic water bottles are a strong argument for reusing bottles. Reusable drinking bottles for water, salad dressing, baby formula, other beverages have gained in popularity by consumers in recent years, due to the costs and environmental problems associated with single use plastic bottles. Common materials used to make reusable drinking bottles include glass, stainless steel, plastic. Reusable bottles include both double wall insulated bottles; some baby bottles have an inner bladder that can be replaced after each use. Reusable bottles can hold bacteria. Drinking from a reusable bottle can transfer bacteria from a person's mouth to the beverage it contains, which can contaminate both bottle and water. Contamination can cause fungal growth in the liquid while it's stored, it is recommend that users clean reusable drinking bottles before each used. Users should take care to wash the bottle cap as well after each use for proper sanitation.
Some experts state that there's no harm in reusing your own drinking bottle, but the risk for ingesting harmful bacteria increases if you share your bottle with others. University of Nebraska Medical Center Microbiologist Pete Iwen, Ph. D. says, “If it’s my bottle, my germs, I would not be all that paranoid about reusing the bottle. The main issue occurs when sharing bottles. Microbes present in my mouth may be harmful to others.” Plastic drinking bottles contain the chemical Bisphenol A, made from polycarbonate and which shares resin identification code 7 with other plastics. Another chemical found in plastic drinking bottles is phthalate. Both of these chemicals are controversial because they are known endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body's hormonal system. A study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that participants who drank from polycarbonate bottles –, the plastic used in disposable plastic water bottles, other plastic drinking bottles, baby bottles – for just one week showed a two-thirds increase in their urine of the chemical BPA.
Exposure to BPA has been shown to interfere with reproductive d
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