AMCOR: A Bottle By Any Other Name, Just Isn't The Same

This afternoon we spent time at South Australia's AMCOR Glass where they make bottles for wine and beer. In fact, they make a lot of bottles...like around 1,000,000 beer bottles a day. It is impressive, fast-paced, extremely HOT work. In fact, if they are off (+/-) by just a few grams...well, as far as I can tell, really bad things happen.

Thankfully, I was able to capture this video from the production line:





The plant was massive, its hard to understate the size of the three furnace operation.

These are mounds of recycled glass.

This is the machine that feeds in the sand, silica and old glass to make new.

Once the sand is heated it drops down into the molds for forming. These can be seen here:

Fire in the hole.

Wine bottles - about 250 per minute.



Hottest job: Part I - This machine/line makes about 450 beer bottles per minute.



Hottest Job - Part II

This is the "cool down" where they are packed and shipped to my refrigerator.

After this visit, I have a whole new appreciation for what these men and women do to make something as simple as a bottle. I even know what those tiny little brail dots mean on the bottom/side of the bottle.

So, tonight, grab a case of your favorite brew/wine and make a toast because somewhere, someplace there is a dude standing over a dangerous machine, next to a 1,000 degree furnace making life possible for the rest of us. Doctors get a lot of credit for being good, but these people make sure our society doesn't come apart at the seems. And, to them, I say "good onya."