Renegade
Awaiting Exile
- Joined
- 3/5/09
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Ever wondered what the extent of an ecological footprint we leave on the planet when making beer at home ? I have, that's why I'm opening up this discussion !
Clearly there are some pretty big advantages to the environment. Looking at bottling, there's no waste going into landfill, or if going back to the recycling plant, no excess energy wasted on melting down the glass and creating a new glass product.
There's no transport pollution, shipping bottles from the manufacturer, to the brewery, then onto a distribution centre for delivery to each outlet.
There's no wasted paper on cardboard cartons or four/six pack holders.
On the other hand, there is still the shipping of grain, kit cans or extract malts from the grower to the maltster then onto the distribution channels. I would take a guess that overall transportation pollution from shipping the ingredients would still be less than shipping heavy bottles all over the country.
However, how much water per litre of beer does a brewery use in the process of manufacturing beer ? Personally I might use 75-100 litres, so that works out to be over four litres of water per one litre of beer output.
Does this wastage correspond with commercial breweries ? Taking the liberty of assumption again, I would say that HB'ers use heaps more water. And probably more cleaning agents on a per-litre basis too. All down the drain.
Thoughts, anyone ?
Clearly there are some pretty big advantages to the environment. Looking at bottling, there's no waste going into landfill, or if going back to the recycling plant, no excess energy wasted on melting down the glass and creating a new glass product.
There's no transport pollution, shipping bottles from the manufacturer, to the brewery, then onto a distribution centre for delivery to each outlet.
There's no wasted paper on cardboard cartons or four/six pack holders.
On the other hand, there is still the shipping of grain, kit cans or extract malts from the grower to the maltster then onto the distribution channels. I would take a guess that overall transportation pollution from shipping the ingredients would still be less than shipping heavy bottles all over the country.
However, how much water per litre of beer does a brewery use in the process of manufacturing beer ? Personally I might use 75-100 litres, so that works out to be over four litres of water per one litre of beer output.
Does this wastage correspond with commercial breweries ? Taking the liberty of assumption again, I would say that HB'ers use heaps more water. And probably more cleaning agents on a per-litre basis too. All down the drain.
Thoughts, anyone ?