<story><title>Heineken WOBO: A Beer Bottle That Doubles as a Brick</title><url>https://inhabitat.com/heineken-wobo-the-brick-that-holds-beer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teruakohatu</author><text>Anyone know why it isn&amp;#x27;t more popular outside of Europe? seems like a perfect use for recycled glass that is not suitable for glass bottles.</text></item><item><author>markvdb</author><text>A large fraction of the one time use glass at least in Europe is recycled into foam glass [0]. A wonderfully versatile and ecological insulation material with slowly but surely increasing popularity.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s factories in at least Belgium, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Switzerland, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Foam_glass&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Foam_glass&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>feb</author><text>One of the biggest companies manufacturing foam glass is actually based in the USA and has many production sites in Europe.&lt;p&gt;The insulation properties depend on the chemical composition of the glass. With recycled glass, the chemical composition is not fully under control and therefore they limit the amount of recycled glass.&lt;p&gt;Production of cellular glass (also called foam glass) requires, even with recycled glass, a lot of energy. That makes it one of the most expensive inorganic insulation materials.</text></comment>
<story><title>Heineken WOBO: A Beer Bottle That Doubles as a Brick</title><url>https://inhabitat.com/heineken-wobo-the-brick-that-holds-beer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>teruakohatu</author><text>Anyone know why it isn&amp;#x27;t more popular outside of Europe? seems like a perfect use for recycled glass that is not suitable for glass bottles.</text></item><item><author>markvdb</author><text>A large fraction of the one time use glass at least in Europe is recycled into foam glass [0]. A wonderfully versatile and ecological insulation material with slowly but surely increasing popularity.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s factories in at least Belgium, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Switzerland, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Foam_glass&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Foam_glass&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmos62</author><text>Good question. I&amp;#x27;d hazard guesses that there was a political dimension (the wikipedia article cites Soviet scientists developing the tech in 1930s) and that insulation wasn&amp;#x27;t taken seriously enough (heaters are cheaper to install and energy was cheap).</text></comment>