Greetings all--
I'd like to throw in another variable, as some are hashing out different scenarios with uncut bottles (facing inwards, outwards, open, sealed, or with jars over the neck) or with cut bottoms mated to create "bricks" (more light xmission, sealed, greater color control through mixing halves provided sizes match up).
Well, one project that I'm working on besides using the "brick" method is what I'll call (for lack of better terminology) the "Chinese medicine cabinet half-brick" method. (Google Chinese medicine cabinet and peruse the images to get my gist) What's happening here is that the half bottle wall will have open ends facing into one room, and these will actually become a "set of drawers" of sorts: I've found that poster tubes fit almost perfectly into the average wine bottle, we're just cutting them to length, then cutting lengthwise to obtain a trough, using 6mm cardstock on the ends, add a handle and voilà fini! Great for holding smaller components in an integrated and attractive way (final outside decoration & hardware up to you). I have yet to see this method anywhere else, despite intensive searching.
Many seem to be interested in integrating their furniture in cob walls and such, this is a great application of a few methods.
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Regarding the previous post about removing bottles from the waste chain, David puts forth some good considerations, however upon thinking about it, I feel a couple of variables were missing, some practical, some personal:
--I think one of the attractions of the glass brick is its regularity of shape and size, something hard to come across with some of the alternatives he gives (aerosol cans are good, just hard to find, glass/cook/tableware varies wildly and is usually chucked because it's broken).
--If we're looking at regularity of building units, what's the standard? A brick. Lasts long, seen a bit as green because of this, and I believe it is this durability that is one of the aspects the glass brick is seeking to replicate, albeit with added function. Alas, removing the glass from the waste stream will affect the supply and such, though let's compare with the brick:
*1 clay brick requires 1.75 kW (6000 BTU) to manufacture
*1 NEW glass bottle 1.1 kW to make
*1 post consumer glass bottle 0.75 kW to make (our ~30% savings)
*1 aluminum can 2.07 kW, just for giggles.
So, the brick requires a bit more energy to create (as well as emits more green house gasses). Of course, you may attempt to source out used bricks, if you can find them (I can't, as brick construction is not very popular here in Korea), but then you have to clean off the old mortar to get them ready for use (if we were whining about getting labels off of bottles....all I can say is that in demolition, usually it's the brick that breaks and the mortar is left intact
Even if the bottle is removed from the waste stream, the energy to make a new one is still much less than the brick.
As mentioned before, bottles are ubiquitous, and "free is my favorite flavor." Safe to say that most of us here in the spirit of DIY are working on a budget. Additionally it's probable that folks trolling these forums don't favor the industries that create this cycle in the first place, who pass the container costs on to the consumer for the product they buy, the consumer then diligently consumes said product, and returns the empty container/materials back to the company with no recompense only to be sold the product again and pay the container fee once again. I speculate that there is a certain contingent with the mentality that another's waste/excess could be their gain/profit, and akin to dumpster diving, will put to good/better use something that was thrown away as unwanted.
Lastly, the ethos of "being green" besides reducing that which is consumed in the first place, stresses "
re-use" before resorting to recycling (last step). Reusing a bottle as a permanent component in a long term habitation would be a higher calling for it, and should its building ever fall out of use and be destroyed, it can still be recycled as this would have been a sabbatical from its product cycle (in the recycling random stuck mortar, etc, wouldn't be the end of the world, just skimmed off with the rest of the slag in the refining process).
Please don't see this as an attack, it's more information/opinion to ponder.
Have a good weekend!
Jason.
Sources:
Google search:
chinese medicine cabinet
http://www.opb.org/news/blog/ecotrope/the-greener-beer-bottles-v-cans/
http://continuingeducation.construction.com/crs.php?L=219&C=878
http://www.deq.state.or.us/lq/pubs/docs/sw/curriculum/RRPart0316.pdf
