It doesn’t take long for mold to grow on empty beer bottles. Considering beer bottles get returned for a refund, you have to assume that the brewery will make an effort to reuse as many as possible.
I toured a brewery once and they showed us the big industrial bottle washing machine. They said the bottles get scanned for cracks using a laser, and rejects obviously get tossed. The question is: what about mold, which adheres quite well to the corners of the glass? I wonder if the laser also detects bottles that didn’t get clean. Or if they just figure the temps would kill everything and just be considered safe enough from there.
As far as I know, in the US, recycled glass is recycled, not reused, so they basically waste a lot of energy to melt the glass back down and make new bottles.
Reusing can definitely be done effectively, though. Homebrewers do it all the time with pretty safe chemicals. If you have industrial machines and chemicals, you can probably get the glass sterile, and if not sterile, then definitely close enough.
As far as I know, in the US, recycled glass is recycled, not reused, so they basically waste a lot of energy to melt the glass back down and make new bottles.
Reusing can definitely be done effectively, though. Homebrewers do it all the time with pretty safe chemicals. If you have industrial machines and chemicals, you can probably get the glass sterile, and if not sterile, then definitely close enough.