Greener glass
Behind the scenes with Bayern’s new recycling program by Alex Sakariassen • photos by Michelle Gustafson Bayern Brewing is no stranger to sustainability. For years now, Bayern’s German-born master brewer Jürgen Knöller has taken step after painstaking step to ensure his operation strikes a balance between good beer and environmental consciousness. He’s teamed up with Montana Trout Unlimited to fund conservation efforts. He’s donated tons of spent grain as feed for a Frenchtown ranch. He’s even offset Bayern’s water usage through work with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation’s water restoration program. But for Bayern, the glass can always be greener. That’s the gist behind Bayern’s latest foray into sustainable brewing: the ecopack. Bayern’s been recycling its packaging materials for years. What the effort lacked was a marketing gimmick, a way to spread the word beyond taproom word-ofmouth. The ecopack—a foldable, waxedcardboard box that fits four six-packs—is Bayern’s answer. “I think we’re the only brewery, in the Northwest at least, that recycles 100 percent of our packaging,” says brewer Justin Lee. “We even recycle bottle caps.” Bayern launched its ecopack campaign this spring, placing boxes at various grocery stores around Missoula and asking for a modest $3 deposit from users. On one
Thursday afternoon in mid-April, three full ecopacks were already sitting near the door of the taproom. A half-gallon Ziplock baggie of bottle caps rested on the counter nearby. Bayern’s recycling push does come with a few stipulations. Bottles can’t be filled with cigarette butts or other garbage. They can’t have chips or cracks. Only the brown, unembossed bottles standard among microbreweries in the Pacific Northwest are
accepted. In other words, no big beer labels or twist-off tops. And they need to be returned to the taproom, Lee stresses. Otherwise ecopack users won’t get paid. The stipulations are there because, as early as this summer, Bayern won’t be recycling bottles. It will be reusing them. Knöller recently purchased a bottle washing machine from a German manufacturer for $400,000 and expects it to be running by the first week
of June. He estimates he’ll need roughly 50,000 bottles returned each week. “They could run, theoretically, eight to 10 times,” Knöller says. The brewery hopes its reuse initiative will cut down on the roughly 2.5 million Bayern bottles that wind up in Missoula’s landfill each year and potentially provide enough used glass to fill distribution demands. “If we can get back enough glass,” Lee says, “we may not have to buy glass again.” There’s more in it for drinkers than a fuzzy eco-friendly feeling. Bayern’s offering refunds for full ecopacks—5 cents per bottle and 10 cents per carrier, provided the materials are in good shape. That makes each ecopack worth as much as $1.60, money you won’t be getting back by simply chucking used bottles in the trash. Bayern already has 12,000 bottles sitting in a shed out back, bottles accumulated before the ecopack was widely advertised. Lee hopes that collection numbers will spike soon. Reusing versus recycling is certainly a smart business move, but Bayern’s equally interested because, as Lee says, “it’s the right thing to do.” “In Europe, that’s how people buy their beer. They bring in a carton full of empties and they give you full bottles ... We’re just trying to bring that to America.”
Garden City BrewFest 2012 • Missoula Independent
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