Random Word Generated Fridays

Special Saturday Edition!

Random Word: Bottle

This represents an epiphany for me.

I do a disproportionate amount of thinking about bottles compared to the average person. My obsession with them is this: People don't buy bottles. Yes, we get bottles when we make a purchase, but the reason for our purchase is usually the contents of the bottle. Not the bottle itself.

The bottle portion of a purchase is probably the least desirable bit, but so much effort goes into it. Say you invent the most delicious spaghetti sauce ever and go into business selling it. You are now in the market for bottles. You'd probably start with a designer who would give you a look for you bottle and label to help make your spaghetti sauce appealing  to the consumer.

Then you would take your design to an engineer who would work out a way to make the bottle, and incorporate any design changes to make the bottle feasible.

You would then find a purchaser to buy all of the ingredients for your bottle (glass, dyes, metal for lids, etc)

Next is the factory workers, foreman and overseers who produce the bottle.

And then the shippers, truck drivers and processors who make sure your bottle(s) would get to the plant where you make your spaghetti sauce.

After all that effort, someone then buys your bottle and throws it away (or recycles it). That's not even counting janitorial staff, chemists and secretaries who may or may not be involved in the bottle making process.

All this effort and money being put into something that is ultimately unappreciated and gotten rid of. An entire section of our economy devoted to making trash. I find it almost unfathomable.

So I end up thinking about bottles a lot.