How big is too big?

America's obsession with going big has gone too far. The 5-for-1 Big Bottom Giant Beer Glass is so dumb. The glass holds 60 oz of liquid- that's 5 cans of beer.

Ok, so you might not have to get up and go to the fridge or keg as often, but you are most definitely going to have some warm beer. Even the laziest person out likes their beer frosty, or the people at sporting events wouldn't yell "Get your ice cold beer here!" They would just yell "Get your beer here!" and there would be no such thing as color changing mountains on Coor's cans, which is the second dumbest thing ever because if you want to see if the beer is cold, just feel the can.

There are only two benefits to this glass, and for one, you have to be under the age of 17. If you are a youngin' and you have your beer in this glass, your friends might think you are cool. "Oh man," they may say, "look how much beer Johnny has! He is awesome!"

The second benefit is if you're at an event, preferably a Gator tailgate or a UF pool party, the beer you are drinking is out of a keg, and you have no rights to said keg. With the gigantic glass, you only have to steal someone else's beer once and you have 60 ounces. That's a lot of ounces for just one steal.

The next big thing in wine bottles?

The big thing now is sustainability. Companies that make an effort to reduce their carbon footprint improve their public image and, in most cases, it improves business. There are some industries, however, that aren't ready for this kind of change. One of those is the wine industry.

Yealands, a sustainable wine maker from New Zealand, is starting to put its wines in plastic bottles. Manufacturing their recyclable PET bottles generates 54% less greenhouse gas emissions and uses 19% less energy. This all sounds good, but I don't know how it will work out.

Wine is one of those products where most customers don't know the difference between high and low quality by just looking at it. They look at the label, the region, and most importantly the price. Wine in a plastic bottle is going to rub people the wrong way. I am not going to look at a plastic bottle next to the traditional glass and assume that the wine in plastic is of better quality. For one, it's different, and people aren't comfortable with change. Also, plastic is considered cheaper than glass, and if you're cheaply packaging your product, maybe it doesn't deserve better. Consumers take weight into account when they are assessing quality, as well. Weights are often added to plastic products to make them appear more expensive.

The screw off cap is supposed to make wine last longer. I know of people who know that and don't buy wine bottles with them because they are comfortable with the cork and think it means quality. I think sustainable business practices are generally a great idea, but in some cases, they wont translate into sales.

Can we make recycling easier? Please?

I just got back from Sustainable Design and I'm thinking "save

the world." I go into my kitchen to get a snack and what do I see? Two overflowing brown paper bags stuffed with cans, jars, and other recyclables.

The roommate and I both like to recycle. One of my best friends is super hippie and washes and reuses Solo cups, ziplock bags, etc. and got me feeling guilty for throwing recyclables away. When I was growing up we had bins for newspaper, cans, plastic and glass. We would put them outside the house once a week and they would get picked up. It was so easy.

When I went to undergrad, I wasn't as eco-friendly. It was harder to find bins and my roommates didn't care to recycle, so we didn't. When I came up here, though, my roommate was into recycling and I started feeling bad throwing things away. So we started the recycling bags. Where to put the items once the bags became full, we didn't worry about till it happened.

The first time I had to dispose of the recycling, I took plastic bags filled with the cans and jars to

Ford, and separated them into the recycling bins. I know, this sounds crazy, but I figured that I was going to Ford anyways and whats 5 minutes separating plastic, glass, and aluminum if I could be helping to save the world. I did it once more and decided it wasn't working out for me. That didn't stop the recycling effort though, and the bags started filling up.

Now, the roommate and I want to recycle. We rinse out the cans and jars and put them aside to recycle. We just don't know what to do with the stuff. There are about 8 big dumpsters within 30 yards of my backdoor, but no recycling

bins. When we moved in they didn't have any information for us about recycling. It's just such a hassle to do the right thing. Maybe Northwestern should do a community program and try fix this. Isn't that something universities do? And if NU is doing something, it really needs to advertise it better. There is definitely some service design work to be done here.

I just want to recycle... I just want to save the world... Is that too much to ask?