Is there a more sustainable alternative to buying water glasses for the kitchen or dining room?

Question

Glass (silicon oxide) is sourced from two types of places on Earth:

1. Quartz mines featuring large white colored boulders.

2. Sand deposits.

The quartz mines are sometimes mined more often than the sand deposits. In any event, large machines powered by diesel fuel engines, are used to move massive amounts of raw material from one place to another.

People work long hours driving trucks full of mined quartz to factories where the quartz is ground into dust, refined (some impurities are removed) and the quartz is melted melted and molded into water tumblers and other drinking glasses.

People living in affluent societies use these glass drinking vessels for drinking beverages.

Relatively speaking, what is more "green", environmentally friendly, or sustainable in the long-run:

1. Buying food (spaghetti sauce, olives, strawberry jam, salsa, etc...) in glass jars; throwing glass jars into a recycling bin; and buying water glasses from a store.

2. Buying food (spaghetti sauce, olives, strawberry jam, salsa, etc...) in glass jars; re-using glass jars for water; and never buying water glasses from a store.

Answer 1

Glass as a material can (mostly) be infinitely recycled - broken glass can be re-melted and re-formed into other glass products with practically 0 loss of quality. Thus, for glass cups and jars that have reached their end of life, it's perfectly ok for them to be recycled.

However, the recycling process IS energy intensive, thus from a sustainability standpoint it makes sense to delay sending glass to this process as long as possible. In other words, Reduce and Reuse first.

One way to reduce the use of (new) glass jars, is to buy in bulk from markets or wholesalers. There also might be wholesalers or eco-friendly markets in your local area that will refill jars and containers for you, especially for products like olives.

To directly answer your question: Is there an alternative to buying water glasses?, you could potentially repurpose glass jars (as you've mentioned in your answer). Another alternative is to purchase used glasses/cups/mugs from second-hand or thrift stores.

Answer 2

Of course you can drink from glass packaging, but I propose a third option: treat the packaging as packaging (recycle, or reuse for storage), and buy drinking glasses second hand from charity shops / thrift stores, flea markets or similar.

You're still not causing a product to be made, you get something that's more decorative (I have a shelf full of odd wine glasses, bought this way), and you get something that's better to drink from.

Drinking from a jar with a screw thread can lead to liquid caught in the thread, and drips on your clothes or surfaces. That's one thing if you only drink water, and it's easy enough to overcome, but serving an unwary guest red wine in a jam jar isn't to be recommended for this reason. Note that "mason jars" sold as drinking glasses often have a lid with a hole for a straw, or lack the screw thread altogether.

Answer 3

Why not clay "glasses" (sounds weird in English because the material is synonym of the recipient but you know what I mean)? They are made from literal earth, so if broken can be ground up to dust which reintegrates and can last a lot. If you worry you can ask for a lead free certificate.

I know they are expensive up front but stainless steel glasses should also last decades and won't ever break or produce undesirable microplastics.

Answer 4

Back in the 70's, there was a fashion for converting glass bottles into drinking glasses. It was so pervasive a "thing" that there were several childrens toys that helped you do it. (Hey, it was a different time, OK?). Glass cutting kits are still sold widely - an ebay search for Glass Bottle Cutter brings up dozens.