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Offlinedenger
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Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass!
    #9296749 - 11/23/08 11:10 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

There was a bit of a talk here lately on reusing jars after contamination.

Now, first of all I am not talking about reusing the substrate, or trying to recover a colonized jar that got contaminated, or anything stupid like this. I am only talking of reusing the glass.

Every time someone says to throw one out into the trash, it makes me cringe. This is stupid and wasteful! There is a lot of energy that went into making and melting that glass and then making the jar out of it and packing it and shipping it, and... Basically you are throwing out a gallon jug of crude oil every time you pitch a jar. STOP DOING IT!

There are easy and safe ways to reuse the jars.

The safest way by far is to sterilize it in a pressure cooker. You only need 15 minutes at 15psi for a pint jar and 20 minutes at 15 psi for a quart jar to kill all molds and yeast. If you want to be on the safe side, run it for 30 or 45 minutes. Bacterial contaminations that produce endospores are not going to matter, because they do not spread well through the air. After the jars cool, just open them up and trash the content (or better yet, add it to your compost pile). Give them a good wash with the dish soap and a bottle brush. Make sure you rinse them 8-10 times after the soap to get rid of all that antibacterial stuff that will inhibit your mycelium growth.

If you do not have a pressure cooker, you should get one. Amazon sells a large one for under $100 shipped. While you are waiting for your new PC, you can dilute a tablespoon of regular Chlorox bleach (not the "color clothes" stuff, regular Chlorox) in a gallon of warm water. Add 1/2 teaspoon or so of dishwashing detergent, and mix well. Do not touch this solution with your hands, it can burn skin if left on it unattended. If you get some on you, wash with copious amounts of running warm water (no soap required). Take your closed jars and the Chlorox solution outside. If you do this inside you chance releasing the spores in your house, and they will find their way into your new grow. Crack the jars opened just enough to pour the Chlorox solution into them. Do them one at a time and close them up immediately.  Make sure they are full of solution. Shake them well, and leave for an hour. Then shake them again and leave overnight. If it is too cold outside, wipe the outside of the jars with the same Chlorox solution and bring them in. Once they sit overnight it is safe to open them and dump the content into the trash. I do prefer to do this outside too, just in case. Remember, nothing substitutes a PC treatment 100%. Once empty, follow the washing procedure from above. For this method the waste cannot be composted, because there still is plenty of Chlorox left in it and it can harm your composting organisms.

Remember, reuse is the best form of recycling!

BTW, if the moderator thinks this is a worthy text, I wont mind a bit if it goes into the Grow Guides or some similar place.

Edited by denger (11/23/08 12:19 PM)

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Invisiblenw_shroomy
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: denger]
    #9296876 - 11/23/08 11:52 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Why not just steam them in a large pot for 45 min?Im sure that spores cant live at 212 degrees Fahrenheit.


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Offlinedenger
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: nw_shroomy]
    #9296999 - 11/23/08 12:15 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Can you guarantee it actually will get to 212F in the middle of the jar?

It might work for you. You might be experienced and/or lucky. There are plenty of people who are neither. I have read on this very board reports (complete with fuzzy pictures :cool:) of people steaming jars for hours on end and still having them contaminated. In one case the guy admitted he did not have a lid for that pot, so he left it open  :psychsplit:

I have tried to provide two reliable ways of doing it. There are tons of other methods, but these are only two (well, actually one and a half) that I can recommend across the board.

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Offlinesolumvita
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: nw_shroomy]
    #9297062 - 11/23/08 12:26 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

For sure, when the recommendation is to "toss it" it does not mean the entire jar.

And yes although contaminant spores and bacteria are tough, they are not immortal and can be killed in a number of ways.  Bleach, boiling, peroxide will all kill them plus some more I'm sure. :grin:


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InvisibleJ3illy
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: denger]
    #9304043 - 11/24/08 01:04 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

denger said:
Basically you are throwing out a gallon jug of crude oil every time you pitch a jar. STOP DOING IT!



I totally see what you're saying, but I'm gonna have to disagree with this particular statement.  You can get jars for like $0.50/ea if you find a good deal.  And that's still allowing them to buy the materials, make it, all the overhead, etc. - and still make a profit.  And did you ever notice that there's really not too much of a difference in price between 1/2 pint jars and 1 qt jars which are 4x bigger?  It's because glass is made from 1 of the cheapest materials on Earth - sand.

Again tho, I totally agree w/ your point about saving jars. :smile:

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Invisiblenoobieshroomie
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: J3illy]
    #9304408 - 11/24/08 02:14 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

but do you know how long that jar will stay in a land fill?
forever,wash,sterilize and use again

    -noobie-


--------------------
AMU

Best Thread Ever
CapZilla said:
not sure what GE and FAE are but i should probably get some.

Citric said:
Your signature is wrong on colonization temps!

GOOD JUDGMENT COMES FROM EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE COMES FROM BAD JUDGMENT

ROOM TEMP 70-75 IS BEST FOR COLONIZATION
Thank you mycochef

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InvisibleJ3illy
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: noobieshroomie]
    #9304862 - 11/24/08 03:28 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

J3illy said:
Again tho, I totally agree w/ your point about saving jars. :smile:



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Offlinedenger
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: J3illy]
    #9306581 - 11/24/08 07:49 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Yes, the jars might not cost much. I am buying them for about $12 a dozen quarts, or same price for 6 of the 1/2 gal ones. However, they are not a profit item. This year grocery stores in my area did not have any for this reason: its not worth selling them at this price, and the market does not support higher prices. I had to ask my local hardware store to get them for me.

Whatever you are paying for them, all this money goes into fuels for making them plus labour. Since they are all made in Mexico and China now, the labour is probably under 5% of that price.

Barrel of oil was $54 today (cheap!), and oil barrel is 42 gallons. So, one gallon of crude oil is a bit more then $1. Somewhere between a quart and a 1/2 gallon jar worth at the retail level. So, I was not exaggerating when I said you are throwing away a gallon jug of oil.

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InvisibleJ3illy
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: denger]
    #9306747 - 11/24/08 08:12 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

What I'm saying is, there's no way a gallon of oil went into making 1 jar - no way.  So taking the retail cost of 1 jar and translating that into how much crude oil it may be worth, just isn't too good of a comparison, ya kno?

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Offlinedenger
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: J3illy]
    #9307018 - 11/24/08 08:44 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

I think its a perfect comparison. The numbers add up. There is no much profit built into these jars, so most of these $$ go into making them, and most of the making is energy. So by throwing one away you are causing the cycle to start from scratch.

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InvisibleJ3illy
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: denger]
    #9307548 - 11/24/08 09:39 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

How is throwing 1 jar away causing the cycle to repeat?  What if you don't buy anymore jars?  And if you do buy more jars, you were most likely gonna buy more anyways. 

What I'm getting at is, 1 gallon of crude oil produces enough energy to make 100's of jars, possibly 1000's.  The figures you're putting out just don't add up.  The wholesale cost to make a jar is probably about 10 cents, even lower for all I kno.  And that's including materials, labor, overhead, the whole nine.  The actual energy cost to make that jar is most definitely less than a penny - not anything remotely close to a gallon of oil.

It's all good tho, we can agree to disagree.  And I still agree w/ you about not throwing jars away in the 1st place. :smile:

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Offlinedenger
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: J3illy]
    #9307689 - 11/24/08 09:54 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

No, you dont have your numbers strait. Google it up, it takes (depending on the process, equipment and ingredients used) between 10 and 40 MJ of energy to produce 1 kilo of glass when starting from raw ingredients. Which happens to be awfully close to an energy content of a litre of gas (32MJ). It takes about 4 litres of crude oil to make one litre of gas. And 4 litres happens to be about a gallon. A 1/2 gallon jar weighs about 800 grams. So, here you go. Dont forget that you have to re-melt that glass when you are making jars out of it, they are never made directly by the bulk glass manufacturer.

Disagree as much as you want, but dont throw number out without checking them.

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InvisibleJ3illy
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: denger]
    #9307777 - 11/24/08 10:04 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

So wait, you're honestly trying to tell me that it takes approximately 1 gallon of crude oil to make ONE jar?  I promise you, that is not true.  A jar that you can buy for $1 did NOT use up a gallon of crude oil - not even close. 

EDIT: I actually just did google it.  In bulk, 1/2 gallon Ball jars are less than a dollar.  For the manufacturer to make, I'd say it's less than 25 cents.  You cannot argue this, because ALL manufacturers mark prices up this much, so they can make a profit and stay in business.  Anyways, the Ball jars are made in the USA.  And upon further searching, I found a figure that said for glass-makers in the USA, fuel cost is 14%.  So when you work this out, fuel cost for one jar is a few cents at the most.  For refined fuel [since no one is using crude oil], this is a single digit percentage of a gallon.

And lastly, after looking at information on the Ball company, it says right on it that "natural gas is critical in glass jar production." So like I was originally thinking, there's no oil being used to produce it in the 1st place, rather natural gas, which we have a HUGE source of right here in the USA. 

Edited by J3illy (11/24/08 11:09 PM)

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Offlinedenger
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: J3illy]
    #9309100 - 11/25/08 06:21 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

I was not saying that oil is actually used. I was only comparing the energy amounts.

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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: noobieshroomie]
    #15089770 - 09/16/11 10:21 PM (12 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

noobieshroomie said:
but do you know how long that jar will stay in a land fill?
forever,wash,sterilize and use again




glass is the most safe substance to put in a landfill, as it is inert and will not pollute anything. the only negative thing is the high amount of embodied energy required to produce glass of any sort. we pay cheap prices because the environment is fronting the bill.

I'm not going to go into converting the MJs to CO2, but check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_energy

Also, I hate having to use aluminum foil on my jars, as you will see, its pretty much congealed lightning, its got so much embodied energy in it. I try to reuse my foil caps when cooking my jars.

Remember, reduce and reuse come BEFORE recycle  :peace: :earth:

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Offlinesauroman1
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: denger]
    #22883063 - 02/09/16 01:30 PM (8 years, 1 month ago)

What about substrate, even contaminated?


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InvisibleMunchauzen
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Re: Reusing contaminated jars: stop throwing away the glass! [Re: sauroman1]
    #22883084 - 02/09/16 01:36 PM (8 years, 1 month ago)

:oldthread: and look, a 4 year old comment of mine! wooo! look at me saving the world!

if your substrate was contaminated in a jar, you cannot re-sterilize it and reuse it. the contaminates excreted a bunch of toxins and other nasty things that will render the substrate useless no matter how much you sterilize it.

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