a glass apart

Back in the day, before I knew what was what,

I worked for a catering company planning some of our city’s cultural events.For one, our chef and his crew found themselves tasked with sending chickens down a conveyor belt.Their destiny: a furnace in a glass factory.The factory was Bullseye Glass in Southeast Portland.Bullseye began in 1974, when three recent art-school graduates—Ray Ahlgren, Dan Schwoerer, and Boyce Lundstrom—cobbled together a glass factory from shipyard scraps and began making hand-rolled sheets of colored glass for the stained-glass trade.Their raw material: cullet—broken glass from discarded bottles, increasingly available locally as a result of the Bottle Bill.Just three years earlier, Oregon had become the first state in the country to require deposits on beer and soft drink containers by law.The idea of returning bottles for a deposit was hardly new.Growing up on Rising Sun Avenue in northeast Philadelphia, I remember my dad returning empty beer bottles to the distributor across the street. They went back by the case in cardboard boxes so hard you could practically knock on them.My dad wasn’t thinking about recycling. It was just part of a routine.For generations, breweries had operated their own deposit system. Customers returned their empties; breweries washed and refilled them.But as beverage companies expanded their reach and competed for attention on the store shelves, the refillable bottle became a problem. Companies needed containers that were lighter, cheaper to ship, and distinctive in color and shape.Gradually, disposable bottles and cans replaced the refillable ones, changing the industry and the landscape.Empty containers accumulated along Oregon’s highways, rivers, and beaches. Fortunately, Oregon had someone who was paying attention: Richard Chambers, a logging–equipment salesman who enjoyed hiking, climbing, and kayaking.His persistence helped to turn a familiar practice into public policy.In 1971, Oregon became the first state in the nation to require deposits on beer and soft drink containers.The purpose wasn’t to create a recycling system. It was to reduce litter along Oregon’s highways and roadsides.And it worked.A five-cent deposit put a value on what had been thrown away.Bottles that once littered Oregon’s roadsides began coming back.Across town, Owens-Illinois was putting cullet to work in another way: turning used glass into new bottles for the region’s emerging food and beverage culture.At its peak in the 1980s, the plant employed nearly 400 people, producing bottles for Northwest breweries, wineries and food processors.Owens-Illinois was among the pioneers using recovered glass to manufacture new bottles.A system took shape.It reduced waste, conserved raw materials and energy, supported local manufacturing, and created stable, skilled jobs.But systems change.In 2025, Owens-Illinois closed its Portland plant. Nearly a century of glassmaking at the site ended.We still return the bottle. But we no longer make the bottle here.The glass goes someplace else.A system that once connected collection, manufacturing, and local jobs lost an essential piece.

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leading by doing

Richard Chambers sold logging equipment for a living.He also loved hiking, climbing, and kayaking through Oregon’s forests and waterways. On his adventures, he encountered the bottles and cans people left behind.In 1968, after reading about an effort in British Columbia to curb disposable containers, Chambers contacted his state representative, Republican Paul Hanneman.His idea was simple: put a deposit on bottles and cans and give people a reason to bring them back.Chambers wrote letters, rallied support, and helped bring the proposal before the Oregon Legislature.Among those Chambers brought to testify was a farmer who had lost four cows after they ingested discarded glass and metal fragments from bottles and cans discarded in his pastures.His first attempt failed in 1969.But Chambers persisted.In 1971, with Governor Tom McCall’s support and a growing coalition of citizens and conservation groups, Oregon passed the nation’s first Bottle Bill.

a remarkable turnaround

Bottle collection before & after the Bottle Bill

All figures refer to refillable glass bottles

the bottle becomes the brand

In 1915, Coca-Cola commissioned a bottle so distinctive it could be recognized by touch alone.The curving glass bottle became one of the most recognizable packages in the world. The container was no longer simply holding the product. It was selling it.The early bottles were refillable. But as Coca-Cola’s popularity grew, so did its influence on how Americans bought and consumed beverages.In 1960, Coke reached American consumers in cans. The familiar bottle even appeared on early can labels to reassure customers that the drink inside was the same.

Owens-Illinois Bottling Plant

the clawThe Owens-Illinois building is a familiar sight from the freeway to NE Sandy.The distinctive “claw" on top is essentially a giant passive ventilation system for the glass factory.Inside the Owens-Illinois plant, furnaces melted glass at temperatures approaching 3000 ℉. The “claw” allowed the tremendous heat of glassmaking to rise and escape naturally while keeping Oregon’s rain outside.

form followed function

A Centuries-Old Problem was solved in Portland.

To make colored glass, each hue uses a different mineral or metallic additive, which can change how the glass expands and contracts when heated and cooled.Incompatible glass fused together can crack.In 1979, Australian glass artist
Klaus Moje came to Pilchuck Glass School in Washington to teach. There he met Bullseye co-founder Boyce Lundstrom.Moje was searching for a broad range of colored glasses that could reliably be fused together in a kiln.That challenge changed Bullseye’s direction.The company began developing a palette of colored glasses engineered and tested to be compatible with one another, giving artists something closer to a painter’s palette—but in glass.Bullseye's innovation came at a remarkable moment for glass in the Pacific Northwest. Pilchuck Glass School was attracting artists interested in pushing beyond traditional forms.The Pacific Northwest became an international destination for glass art–and Portland was a part of it.

GLASS

Bottles and JarsThat’s it.

Wine bottles, beer bottles, olive-oil bottles, jam jars, pickle jars–the containers made to hold food and drink and sometimes medicine–this is the type of glass that is recycled.

Don’t even think about drinking glasses, eyeglasses, mirrors, windows, ceramics, and glass cookware–they may look like they belong, but they don’t. They are made differently and melt at different temperatures.

Glass is collected separately from the other recyclable materials–paper, plastic, and metal.

The reason:Broken bottles and jars can still be recycled. But when broken glass mixes with paper, plastic, and metal, it interferes with the recovery of those materials. Glass shards are hard to sort out, can damage machinery, and pose a serious safety issue to workers.Keep glass separate.

sort it out

GLASS

That's it.

Deep Dive

Where did all the bottles go?

act I

act II

Everything old is new again

Oregon's Bottle Bill helped keep containers off roadsides and out of landfills.

Over time, the system evolved from returning bottles for reuse to collecting them primarily for recycling.

Today, most eligible beverage containers carry a ten-cent deposit. Consumers can return their empties through BottleDrop centers, retailers, and other collection locations.

Wine bottles were left out of the Bottle Bill. They can be recycled, but Oregon's deposit system wasn't designed to bring them back for refilling.

The founders of Revino are working to change that.

Keenan O’Hern grew up between Oregon and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, returning empty bottles was simply part of everyday life.Adam Rack grew up in western Kansas, not far from The Land Institute, a nonprofit developing perennial grains that grow back year after year, reducing soil disturbance and agriculture inputs.

Different backgrounds, but both are experiencing how to think about our resources and sustainability.Working together with O-I Glass (formerly Owens-Illinois), and building relationships with Oregon wineries, they're developing a system to bring refillable bottles back.Participating wineries fill Revino bottles and send them into the marketplace. When empty, the bottles can be turned in to participating collection locations, such as New Seasons Market.The collected bottles return to Revino's washing facility in McMinnville, where they are cleaned, inspected and prepared for another refill.The idea is not entirely new to Oregon Winemakers.In 2010, Vincent Fritzsche of Vincent Wine Company, John Grochau of Grochau Cellars and Anne Hubatch of Helioterra Wines joined forces to create Guild WinemakersPooling resources, they purchased grapes and wine to produce affordable blends, including a Rhône-style red.Their wines appeared in bottles, kegs and boxes–good wine, meant to be enjoyed now.Coopers Hall in southeast Portland took the idea further, building an urban winery around wine on tap and reusable stainless-steel kegs.These weren't just experiments in packaging. They were different ways of making, distributing, selling, and enjoying wine.Winemakers and businesses were finding their own solutions.

In 2025, Business Oregon awarded Revino $250,000 to develop its washing and sanitation infrastructure.

Oregon's changing recycling laws may provide another incentive.

The price of packaging

In 2025, Oregon began implementing its Recycling Modernization Act, shifting more of the cost of recycling packaging from households and local governments to the businesses putting it into the marketplace.[Circular Action Alliance](), or CAA, a nonprofit organization selected by the state, administers the program under the oversight of Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality.Fees vary by material and weight.For 2026, the published base fee for glass packaging was approximately ten cents per pound.Consider a winery selling 100,000 bottles of wine into Oregon. That is a little over 8000 cases.If each bottle weighs 1.2 pounds, it could mean $12,000 in glass packaging fees alone, before exemptions or adjustments.Revino raised an interesting question:If a winery returns, washes, and refills the same bottle, should it pay a new packaging fee each time?In comments submitted to DEQ in May 2025, Revino sought clarification that qualifying reusable bottles would not incur additional fees each time they are returned to the market.A winery using single-use bottles buys new packaging with every production run. A winery using refillable bottles can keep the same glass circulating.Collecting, transporting, washing, and inspecting bottles also costs money. But those expenses can be seen as an investment in a system that keeps its materials in circulation.

act II

the days of wine and roses

Less than sixty years ago, vineyards

Less than sixty years ago, vineyards sprang up in the Willamette Valley like mushrooms in the dark.Before long, it became a serious wine region.1979, A Pinot Noir from The Eyrie Vineyards in the Dundee Hills was entered in a blind tasting in France–and surprised the world.1980 Burgundian producer Robert Drouhin challenges a rematch in Beaune, putting Eyrie against some of Burgundy’s most prestigious wines.Eyrie finished second, just behind Drouhin’s 1959 Chambolle-Musigny.Oregon wine had arrived.

And it kept growing.

Vineyards multiplied across the Willamette Valley as its Pinot Noir developed an international reputation.By 2023, Oregon wineries were selling roughly six million cases of wine a year–72 million bottles.That’s a lot of bottles.

But increasingly, most of the bottles supplying the wineries were made somewhere else.Pinot Noir producers gravitated toward Burgundy-style bottles: sloping shoulders, particular shades of green, heavier bases, distinctive molds and, at the premium end, bottles that felt heavy in the hand.As wineries differentiated their brands, packaging became part of the product. Each varietal had a different shape and color.Owens–Illinois was not equipped to meet those needs. Its container-glass furnace was built for scale. Changing colors, molds, bottle weights, and production runs costs time and money.

2008 A new glass-bottle factory opens in Kalama, Washington, built in part to serve the Northwest wine industry.2010-2012 New owners rebuild the plant, investing roughly $35 million, including a $13 million oxygen-fired natural gas furnace, to more efficiently generate the melting power required to make wine bottles from recovered glass. The rebuilt plant can produce more than 100 million bottles a year.2015, Owens-Illinois buys Kalama specifically to expand its West Coast wine and craft-beer business.2019 Owens-Illinois leaves a furnace idle due to a drop in demand.

2023 Oregon wineries sell roughly six million cases of wine.

2023 Owens-Illinois puts its Portland plant on hot hold for lack of demand.

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why glass

Glass plays a critical role in food storage because it is non-reactive.Unlike plastic, glass does not absorb flavors, leach chemicals, or degrade over time when exposed to ils, acids, or heat.This makes it especially well-suited for Oregon's beers, ciders, honey, and preserves.

act I

one million bottles of beer on the wall 🎶

1888 A Fountain of Beer

Portland was becoming a prosperous industrial city, eager to display its refinement.

To celebrate the dedication of its elegant new Skidmore Fountain, brewer Henry Weinhard offered to fill it with beer.

The city fathers declined.

More than a century later, a new generation of brewers would transform Oregon's beer industry.

1984 BridgePort Brewery Opens

Oregon wine pioneers Dick and Nacy Ponzi open BridgePort Brewing in an old rope factory in what would become Portland's Pearl District.Their first brewmaster, Karl Ockert, builds the brewery with salvaged dairy tanks, baling wire, and whatever else he can find.

1984 Widmer Brothers begins brewing.

1985 Oregon passes the Brewpub Bill, allowing breweries to make and sell beer on the same premises.

1985 McMenamins joins the growing list.

1987, Full Sail opens in Hood River.

1988 Deschutes opens in Bend.

1988 Rogue opens in Ashland.

Owens-Illinois had been making bottles in Portland for decades. As Oregon's craft breweries multiplied, demoand for locally made bottles grew.

2013 More than one million bottles a day

Owens-Illinois' Portland plant is producing more than one million bottles a day, primarily for local microbreweries.

🎶 take one down...

2016 Widmer put its Hefeweizen in cans.

2018 Deschutes puts Mirror Pond, Fresh Squeezed IPA, and Pacific Wonderland in cans.

Cans are lighter to ship, easier to carry, and welcome in places where glass isn't–concerts, ballparks, campgrounds, and hiking trails.Though I wouldn’t recommend beer while mountain climbing.As packaging preferences changed, so did the economics of making glass bottles.

2019 Owens-Illinois idles one of its Portland furnaces.

93 jobs are lost 🎵

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