A lot is talked about how recycling glass bottles is the best way to save energy and help save the environment – but it’s not! The best way to help the environment is to reuse the bottle.
This is what local producer Devonia does and we decided to stock their water as it ticked so many of our ‘green’ boxes – reusing bottles, saving energy and it’s local!
Devonia’s water comes from a spring that bubbles up on the edge of a meadow near the villages of Beeson and Beesands near Start Point in the south of the county. We stock both their still and sparkling water and it has a natural soft taste.
By returning a bottle to Devonia, it is washed and reused and that saves approximately 16 x the energy compared to crushing it and reforming into a bottle. That means 16 x less carbon dioxide. And that doesn’t even begin to take into account the environmental cost of transport from the manufacturing plants across the world. At Devonia, the distance from the washing machine to the filing machine is only 5 meters!
Recycling is important as it saves glass from going into landfill which is the worst possible outcome. However, the energy savings are minimal because of the environmental cost of sorting and transport. Also, a new bottle will only ever have approximately 20% recycled glass in it. Most recycled glass goes to construction material.
Devonia has been at the forefront of pushing back the wasteful use of glass bottles for over 20 years. With over 130 tons of glass saved from landfill, the company can proudly say it has also saved 19500kg of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Reuse involves no technical barriers and Devonia offers a solution for those who wish to be more environmentally responsible. Bottles are collected, carefully washed and reused to ensure our impact on the environment is as low as possible. This process is unique and in, in recognition, the business has won the Devon Environmental Business Initiative award.
We think this simple approach makes a lot of sense and that’s why we stock Devonia.
