U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: reallly cheap brown bottles

Re: reallly cheap brown bottles



Chris wrote:

http://www.specialtybottle.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=2
Generally speaking, glass is (as I believe was already noted) safer than plastic, because it can be cleaned (chemically and physically) better than plastic -- especially important if you're changing contents. There's also the fact that plastic has all sorts of ingredients (often as yet unremarked) which can re-enter the ambisphere.... as the similar-to I think it was estrogen... effect of a chemical found to leach out of plastic drink bottles caused them to be recently taken off the market.

Glass, as I understand it, is essentially impervious and inert (except I daresay under extreme provocation). Aside from the brown color filtering out light, I've read (not proved it myself) that brown glass is especially inert.

However, one adorable quality of brown glass that hasn't been mentioned is that it's available (or used to be) from science sources with its own glass dropper, which is, I dare say *literally* a godsend. Many, even most, of our measurements are in small quantities, nearly impossible to measure accurately by pouring, and totally impossible to pour without dripping.

The bottles also last, in effect, forever. But if you yourself live for a few more years, the rubber squeeze tops of their droppers will disintegrate (faster even than you do)... I haven't found a place to replace them. These originally came from Ginsberg Scientific, but it was always difficult for a lay person to buy from them... Has anyone done business with them lately? (I bought in bulk for school, so price wasn't an item anyway -- the bottles last forever, another reason price may not be an item except for a class.)

I'd also guess -- and this is purely a guess, that bottles made for lab purposes would be a better value at whatever price than simply "cheap brown bottles" -- which, unless otherwise specified (I haven't checked) could be made as throwaways for, say, Belgian Beer (as my neighbor got a $25 ticket for drinking on our front stoop the other day... and in NYC
even a paper bag doesn't cover the "crime"... So if you want to drink beer on the stoop, put it in a goblet, or buy a non-alcoholic beer, pour it out, & pour your beverage in).

J.