I never ran a restaurant but Googling around it seems like bars replace around 100% of the glasses annually due to breaking. That sounds like a lot...
> Normal glasses are recyclable
I've never seen anyone collecting broken glass and putting it in a special glass-bin. The glass bin we have in Amsterdam isn't one that you can even push broken glass into if you wanted - it's shaped specifically to receive bottles.
Most resources online hint that the reason this hard glass didn't become successful is because there's a lot of profit to be made by reselling glasses when your old glass breaks.
It wouldn't take large shards of a plate window but it definitely can accept anything with one dimension that doesn't exceed 10cm or so, which is almost all the broken glass we've wanted to put into it.
I was first confused by this because here in France we have this popular practice, mainly at the school cafeteria, to look at the bottom of our glass to know how old we are (actually it's the mold number obviously...) and depending of the people, the younger (or the older) gets to fetch water for everyone else during lunch.
https://eu.duralex.com/en/blogs/inspirations/et-toi-tu-as-qu...
Is this the case in reality? Everywhere I've lived drinking glasses were not accepted as part of domestic glass recycling due to their composition [0]
Perhaps there is a commercial recycling route for pubs though? A quick google didn't turn anything up.
[0] https://www.friendsofglass.com/ecology/what-glass-can-you-re...
From a glass making point of view you don't want them messing with expansion coefficients and bulk properties so they're off the table there - it's a waste of energy to reheat them up to ~ 1,000 C.
But you do end up with large volumes of glass .. a relatively consistant material, you might want to crush and tumble that (to take the sharp edges away) and use that sized grit | frit as driveway material, as additive to concrete where structurally sound, as fish tank "sand", etc.
The tumbling was only meant to be applied to application requiring rounded grit, you're correct that concrete and other uses might prefer jagged.
Hmm, practical concerns about acquisition aside, would lunar dust work?
The recycling containers here have separate containers for clear glass and coloured glass and I've always thought glass is glass.
Now I checked in detail what is accepted, and sure enough, drinking glasses and mirrors are specifically disallowed.
All the places I know (Denmark/Germany) the glass you want to recycles is getting dumped in containers where it breaks most of the time when you toss it in.
Why? This just sounds like planned obsolescence.
>as they're meant to be replaced regularly
Why? Is it a real hygrine problem or something?
Making the scratches obvious makes clear to the pub landlord that they need to be replaced (and tips patrons off so they'll put pressure on the landlord by not coming back).
Honestly, I've never heard of this before and I have friends working in the restaurant industry. Is it a real documented health hazard or a fact spread by the glass manufacturers to create infinite demand (glass as a service)?
That's the key part here. Pubs use commercial dishwashers which effectively shot blast your dishes and glasses. There's a reason you can see "Not dishwasher safe" on certain items: because it'll blast off the nice patterns. I know because I've done it by accident.
I've nerve seen it on glassware though. That warning is usually for plastics since they melt at hot dishwasher water, and on certain metal cook-ware where the caustic dishwasher detergent will corrode the metal anodization, but glass is usually resistant to both temperature and caustic detergents, which is why it's used in bio labs for storing and mixing harsh chemicals, granted, different composition of glass, but it's still glass not adamantium.
So this point doesn't scan for me.
No but the process that strips the paint off delicate crockery is self-evidently abrasive, which stands to reason when you look at the scratch marks in glass that has been through too many cycles.
It's not on glass because an individual washing won't destroy it but repeated washing eventually scratches the glassware to hell. I've seen it with my own eyes.
Marks on glass are not due to abrasion, they appear because glass is slightly soluble in alkaline water, which is the case in dishwashers. Porcelain and stainless steel do not get scratched by dishwashers for example.
I guess that could cause abrasion if there's hard and sharp particles in the water, but I'm not sure what could cause those. Maybe if glass breaks during washing, but I'd assume the machine filters the water before reusing it.
There's a couple of sources:
- The dishwasher tablets have a mildly abrasive substance
- The water itself (especially in the UK) can carry abrasive substances from the pipes
Dishwasher detergent does not contain abrasive substances; dissolve a teaspoon of it in a glass of hot water and see for yourself.
Same substances with different processes produce different results.
I know for a fact they use dishwashers (I've seen them) and that dishwashers scratch the hell out of your glasses (I've seen that too). Handwashing simply doesn't do this. Dishwashers work by, effectively, shot-blasting your dishes and glasses so I can see the mechanism by which your glassware will get scratched. I don't see how this happens when you're handwashing with Fairy liquid and a soft sponge.
Thank you for the explanation but already knew it, just going towards the part where commercial washers are less "soap" and more sani-solution.
They really shouldn't be, forcing CO2 out of suspension is exactly what you don't want. It causes the beer to become flat more quickly. This is why good beer bars use a glass washer right before serving, to remove any small particles that may end up in the glass and cause nucleation.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2971/0116/files/dirty_beer...
This isn't meant to be a nationalistic point, but America has a relatively undeveloped beer culture; beer is often kept and served very poorly and drinkers rarely notice. British, Belgian or German drinkers will notice, complain and tell all their friends if you aren't serving beer properly.
(I count myself amongst them, despite only being 3/32 German...)
What is this even supposed to mean?
Where are they loud? I never hear people in the pub/bar shout "My glass has micro-scratches, this is undrinkable!".
Food, god no, wouldn't want to cause a fuss. Uncooked chicken? I'll just push it to the side and eat the rest.
Really? You're not just being facetious?
I NEVER send food back if I just don't like it. If it's under-seasoned or not up to my standards, no big deal. I'll go elsewhere next time.
But if it's a food safety issue, or if I order something pricey and it's missing a key ingredient (they don't have to take it back in that case, just bring that ingredient to the table and we're good). I mean, if you paid for it and you can't eat it because it's unsafe or you didn't get what you paid for ... that should be totally understandable and expected that it gets sent back. I've worked in food service and while I would never spit on anyone's food no matter how much of a dick they are, I wouldn't even feel the temptation if it was a legit kitchen screw-up.
Yeah, no, that's an American PoV/meme to think all those nationalities somehow are fickle about the glass of the beer when in reality most of them wouldn't even notice in real life. Beer drinking is a causal activity there, not a sommelier activity where every detail is scrutinized.
You go to the park and it's full of Germans drinking beer out damn aluminum cans. Most bars are so dark and loud and people so drunk, the last thing they care about is if their beer glass is pitch perfect.
People do care about the quality of the beer, but the quality of the glass, not so much.
It isn't a matter of being a connoisseur's fetish, but about the basic standards expected by a large bulk of drinkers. "Craft beer" is a fairly novel and niche product in the US, but even Wetherspoons - a huge chain known for selling very cheap beer - serves a wide range of (often local) real ale in most of their pubs. Many thousands of British pubs are members of Cask Marque, a voluntary accreditation scheme that requires regular inspections of their cellar-keeping and the quality of their beer. America has a burgeoning beer culture, but much of the country is still a beer desert where the only widely available beers are pasteurised lagers. The effects of prohibition are still being felt today, because it takes generations to develop a proper beer culture.
Also, most of what counts as craft beer in the US wouldn't even legally pass as beer here.
This would have been true decades ago. It hasn't been true anytime recently, even more than a decade ago. At this point, craft beer is available bottled and canned in the typical supermarket and even gas station/convenience store in the US, even dive bars have at least one tap for craft beer or at least some bottles (although it is likely not going to serve it in high quality glassware), and craft beer makes up more than a quarter of the total dollars sold in the US beer market and nearly 15% of the volume.
You say this, but at the same time, the most popular beers drunk in every European country are pasteurised lagers as well. In fact, lagers are popular /all over the world/ for the same reason: They are light, easy to drink, cheap to produce and buy, and refreshing when served cold in hot weather.
I've been in plenty of historic pubs in the UK that were unfortunately acquired and ruined by Wetherspoons. A Wetherspoons is in no way any better than the average dive bar in the US, except that in the US it is commonplace for a bar to serve only alcohol and no food, where in the UK pubs are generally expected to have food.
Depends on the state; in mine, a bar can sell beer without a liquor license, but getting a liquor license (required not only for booze but for wine as well) involves jumping through a lot of hoops, one of which is that no more than X% of your sales by dollar amount can come from alcohol. There are no bars that are just bars, unless they only serve beer.
A practical side effect is that lunches are very competitively priced in restaurants that have busy bars, because they take the hit at lunch in order to allow wine/liquor sales.
As a Guinness fan I gladly go to a pub that does it correctly, compared to one that doesn't.
So the idea that there is a business impact to having lower quality experience even visiaul can not just be ignored by saying 'drinking is causal'.
As a pub you have to try to offer something that you can't get from aluminum cans in the park.
Clearly, this is false, and it is enough to visit such a country or look at beer sales to know that this is the case.
At the same time, I will agree that the average beer and what is considered "drinkable" in probably any European country is significantly better than the swill that passes as average in the US.
You are extremely incorrect on this point. I think this is true if you think of your typical dive bar in the US, but this is more a /cost/ point than a point of the beer culture. Dive bars are not expected to be good, just cheap. The best beers in the world of every style (except Belgian beers) are in made in the US. The US revived craft brewing and spread it around the world, and brought craft brewing to parts of the world that never had any serious beer culture. American beer is /far/ far more than light beers shotgunned out of a can in the parking lot during a college football game.
There are numerous craft bars in the US that take the quality of their pours, including the quality of the glassware very seriously. The US helped to pioneer the certification process for serving beer, modeled after that for wine. The BJCP was founded in 1985 in Colorado, as an offshoot of the American Homebrewer's Association, and the Cicerone Certification program was founded 25 years ago in the US as well. The US has done a significant amount, not just for itself, but for the world, to establish high standards of excellence for the making of beer and the serving of beer.
I say this as someone who is an expert on beer. I have traveled to more than 70 countries, in part specifically to drink beer. I have brewed beer for more than 20 years. I have judged beer competitions. I am a certified cicerone. I have drank more than ten thousand unique beers and been to more than 2500 breweries in my life. It is completely ignorant (and a nationalistic ignorance) to say that the US has a poor beer culture. This might have been true in the 1970s, it is not true today, and it hasn't been true for decades.
I thought Brits hate head on beer.
Northern drinkers traditionally prefer a thicker, creamier head and used beer pumps with a "sparkler" nozzle to provide this, while southern drinkers typically preferred very little head; this historic divide is starting to soften in recent years.
Some European beer styles are properly served with a bigger and frothier head, particularly wheat beers and pilsners.
https://bucolicaholic.com/2016/09/01/on-real-ale-the-sparkle...
It's a requirement of the volume calibration - beer glasses used for commercial purposes are classified as certified measurement devices under EU law, you have to print on the glass the year in which the required stamp got affixed [1]. This serves to provide the customer with a way to check if they're being sold the correct amount of beer.
Fun fact, this was a massive issue for stone mugs and led to a lot of confusion when the regulation became enforced [2].
[1] https://www.agme.de/?qs_servlet=downloadIxServlet&rq_RecId=3...
[2] https://germany.representation.ec.europa.eu/news/klarstellun...
That may be, but rem ember of the three things you should be doing - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Recycling is the worst and should be avoided anytime the other two are doable.
The raw material for glass making is basically sand, and there's no problem dumping old glasses in a landfill.
So you should only recycle glass, if that's cheaper than making glass from scratch. There's no benefit otherwise.
(And you can still reduce and re-use, of course.)
Recycling is not energy neutral. Far from it.
> Clearly glasses last a long time, I don't think smashing is the kind of issue they're making it out to be.
Clearly not. Spend 2 hours in any crowded bar or restaurant and you will hear the sound of glass smashing into pieces.
I think that is a TikTok 'story' which sounds reasonable and is spreading despite it being not true. Yes perhaps the year can be an indication of older glass and perhaps they have more wear, but that is down to use and care rather than just age and not what the year means.
The M mark indicates the year the tooling for that specific glass was certified and marked. Years ago the glasses were manufactured, then tested for capacity, and finally stamped to show they passed.
More recently the manufacturer, this is a major factor for plastic glasses which are moulded, has their process and tooling regularly certified and random samples regularly tested. This means they can be marked during manufacturing rather than an additional process.
This has a good overview of the markings on a UK drinks glass https://advancedmixology.com/blogs/art-of-mixology/what-does...
A bit of legislation from Trading Standards who police it. https://www.southwark.gov.uk/assets/attach/2503/Alcoholic-dr...
A bit of Government legislation about applying the mark. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/applying-a-crown-symbol-to-pint-...
These hardened glasses are sharper when they smash. They tend to smash after a few drops, but more drops than normal glasses.
They solve a historical problem from East Germany: lack of resources to make glass, which is no longer a problem. Normal glasses are recyclable.