Glass bottles, smashed, everywhere I cycle, I have to be careful to avoid riding over the millions of shards of broken glass, that you can find pretty much anywhere that you can walk or cycle. A task pretty much impossible when its wet, as they then become invisible (ever wondered why you get more punctures when it's been raining?). Dogs aren't so lucky as they have no idea about broken glass, until they slice open their paws, bleed all over the carpets and their owners have to soak up the expense of vets bills.
So where is all this broken glass coming from? The surprisingly high number of idiots out there who think the best thing to do with an empty bottle is to smash it on the ground/wall/someones head, especially if it is an underpass with narrow passage, making it difficult to avoid riding/walking over it. I think it is unlikely we will be able to do anything about the idiot hoard anytime soon, but there may be a simple solution to the broken glass problem.
Laminate the bottles. Simple. Bottle gets smashed - all the glass remains inside the laminate skin. No bits of glass everywhere. Easy to recover and recycle.
It would be unthinkable (in fact illegal) for plate glass, vehicle windows etc. to made of ordinary glass. Most windows are made of toughened glass and to further increase the safety, a layer of laminate is applied so that in the event of breakage, the glass won't shatter all over the ground. So surely, it can't be that difficult to modify the production of certain class of bottles (namely the ones likely to end up smashed on the ground - beer bottles, and generally any bottles containing drinks bought from typical grocers), so that there is some means of containing the glass if the bottle breaks? Some bottles already have a 'shrink wrap' label that keeps the whole bottle contained, but this will probably be rejected as it isn't such an aesthetically pleasing label. Perhaps bottles could be dipped in a cellulose based (green/recyclable) dip that could for a protective skin around the bottle?
Whatever the exact solution, it isn't rocket science, but it is urgently needed. Who wants the town centre to be a sea of broken glass every Friday/Saturday night? Who wants broken glass in the park where their children play and dogs run around? Who wants chunks of glass sticking out of their bicycle tyres on their Monday morning commute? Nobody does! Time to get 'safety bottles' as standard and get rid of the broken glass menace once and for all!
Photo nicked from: http://groundlessmind.blogspot.com/2010/08/in-my-head_17.html thanks!
