Canning jar love

I love these canning jars. I really do. I've always loved them, even before I learned to can, and long before I became a Master Recycler and got obsessed with packaging. I think they are near perfect, and in my ideal world, these would be the only type of packaging allowed for soupy, jammy, liquidy things. Notice the rounded corners but squarish design of these jars? And the wide-mouth openings? There are only two lid sizes (for five different volume jars): regular and wide! I think that's amazing. I have no idea how old these jars are, because once you wash them, they look good as new. I picked up the larger ones at a rummage sale recently -- a big cardboard box filled with jars, for $2!

I have been amassing quite a cache of canning jars in my adult years. It started when we lived in California and had 6 fruit trees growing in our yard. We learned to make jam that year. I opted for the half-pint and 8-ounce jars. They've served me well. Last year, my friend Carol invited some of us to her house to can peaches, and we put those up in quart jars. I have no idea what I'll put in the really big ones (2-quart), but I just love them and I had to have them. They make nice flower vases too. Or drinking glasses. I am low in the pint size. I will keep an eye out this summer at rummage sales.

I recently saw that one of our local microbreweries is selling beer to go in Mason jars. You can buy a reuseable jar from them, or bring your own. I think that's fantastic. Wouldn't it be amazing if all commercial food products were packaged in standard sized jars, just like these? And they could put their paper labels on the front to differentiate their product and brand-loyalty, and all that. But, when it was done, you could just reuse and reuse and reuse forever (or until they break)! Or, say if you were not the kind of person who might store or can in them again, could return them to a bottle collection site, where manufacturers would wash/sterilize and then reuse (instead of recycling the glass). Sure, you could recycle the broken ones. Speaking of beer again, in college we could root around our street and usually find a case of beer bottles, return them to any store, didn't matter if they were from different brands because the beer bottles had the same dimensions. And with the bottle deposit return, your next case was half paid for. Does this still happen? Apparently I don't drink enough beer to know. Or did the transportation costs of glass, and the breakage factor change all that? In any case, I like the beer in a reuseable mason jar idea. Or anything in a mason jar for that matter. Long live the canning jar!