Surely it's not April 1st

The worst thing is the article says that 5,500 people are attacked with glasses & bottle each year, then goes on to say 126,000,000 pints are served each week in the UK.

So from those figures approx – less than 0.00008394383394% of pints sold result in someone being glassed.

Quite a few places have been doing this for ages! I don't see what the big problem with plastic glasses is.

Been discussed many times over the years and as chvk says loads of pubs moved from glass ones anyway, feels a bit odd but that's about it.

Load of bobbins – Health & Safety gone mad. How much will this later caper cost hmm? And who do you think will be picking up the tab huh?
What next? Knives not allowed in restuarants due to risk of stabbing?!

How much will this later caper cost hmm?

They're durability is the reason many have swapped.

Aghh, the term "Health and Safety gone mad" has been let out of the box when it has little to do with H&S. Isn't there a copy of the Daily Wail requiring your attention?

🙄

Surely its not beyond the realms of current technology to make a shatterproof glass or one made from safety glass that'd shatter like a windscreen when broken?

yeah love the daily wail me – best rag on the market 🙄

less than 0.00008394383394% of pints sold result in someone being glassed.

Prize to that man for dodgy use of stats – with added marks for using far more precision than there is in the input data.

dont you mean meerkat?

So go on RepacK, what is the H&S gone mad angle then?

Sure its not an 'attempting to control public disorder gone mad' angle?

Same difference if you ask me but yes if you want a good answer I think you have just provided one yourself. I see no need to elaborate. Go to the top of the class! 😉

Maybe accidental glass breakages mean less profit so plastic is cheaper. But then again, people are more likely to break plastic ones just 'cos they're plastic and not look after them.

And that's 105.769 people attacked every week in England and Wales alone. Wonder what the figures would be like if you included Scotland ??

It is perfectly possible to use toughened glass that does not leave sharp shards. More expensive tho.

I would walk straight out of a pub that offered me beer in a plastic without paying. Bang out of order

'Same difference'?

Since when did the H&S Executive fall under the remit of the Home Office?

I think you know what Im driving at..Basically I resent the Nanny State & all the connotations thereof. I hope that is clear enough.

Maybe the problem isn't the glasses. Maybe, and I have no empirical evidence to support this, it's just that some of the people that go out drinking are total scum?

Maybe, as a society we need to start to change our entire attitude to alcohol and start to make getting completely pissed in public less acceptable.

For example, I personally would be delighted to see a minimum price per unit of alcohol. If I have to pay a bit more for my supermarket beer it would be a small price indeed if it stopped underage drinkers getting rat-arsed out on the street.

I'd also ban all price promotion of alcohol (happy hours, 2 for 1 offers – anything).

I'd also make it an offence to be drunk in public places where there might be children present – at the beach, at a carnival, in a shopping centre etc.

I'd also like people to realise that getting drunk in itself isn't very big or clever. Unfortunately I think though that it is a symptom of the empty lives that many people lead that they think that the simple act of getting drunk is something worth pursuing.

I'd also ban those hats that have a can on each side and 2 long bendy straws.

Of the pubs I've been in using them it was usually for shot and wine glasses, only time I've been served a plastic beer glass is because of a festival or event on where they wanted a faster turn around.

I think banning stuff is the best way to make the world safe.
As soon as they ban beer in pubs — bingo, safe as can be.

Surely its not beyond the realms of current technology to make a shatterproof glass

There was a time when beer in the UK was only ever sold in pubs in glass mugs/tankards/whatever. These were pretty much indestructible iirc. Still make a nasty weapon if smashed across someone's face though.

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RepacK – the article suggests that this is a crime prevention issue – there's no mention of 'accidents'. Still never mind, perhaps you'd like to throw in "this is political correctness gone mad" as well ?

RepacK – So the H&S Executive is purely a tool of the nanny state (though not in the case of pint glasses as it has nothing to do with them) rather than an organisation that through the powers granted to it stops employers exposing their employees to risks that prior to 1974 were very much present in occupations not covered by industry specific acts (Factories Act, Mines Act etc) and largely not dealt with purely due to cost?

IMO this is just another symptom of the Nanny State trying to control whats good & whats bad..Ok lets call it PC gone mad as well! I dont care what sort of label you want to put on this subject – its just a daft idea. I like my ale in a pint GLASS not some flippin tupperware! And Im a grown-up who can hold his ale, never had a pub fight & never smashed a glass over someones head! Why should the gov be telling me what to drink out of???

GRRRRRR!!!!!

ps sooty whatever..Your encyclopdeical knowledge of the HS act is wonderfull but you'll have to buy me a drink before Ill talk to you!

Take your own tankard then and make sure no one sits in 'your' seat at the end of the NAAFI bar, you NAAFI cowbow you.

sorry the OP is b*llocks

the scheme is looking to find an accepable replacement, no preferred design is being pushed and the likelihood is that in 5 years we will have reduced glassing stats and not know what all the bother was about

I listened to the designer get interviewed, don't see an issue other than why has it took so long to get to a good idea ike this

NAAFI cowboy??? WHTF?? I think your in the wrong place, this isnt ARRSE.

It's not a new idea Portsmouth Student Union were using plastic 'glasses' ten years ago (potentially longer), and night clubs have used plastics for ages. It made complete sense as these places are full of drunks who often drop their drinks. The place would have been covered in blood given the types of shoes the girls wore and the amount of glass that would have been strewn across the floor.

I like my ale in a pint GLASS not some flippin tupperware!

I can't say that I would disagree with that statement. It's still got bugger-all to do with H&S/nanny state/political correctness though. Unless of course, you think that is also the reason why we aren't allowed to carry guns ?

Go on RepacK, tell us a yarn about the BAOR days.

😉

Beer tastes better in a glass. Fact. I put up with plastic glasses and understand it at festivals/clubs and the like but this is sad really.

Another reason not to bother going to the pubs and stay at home and drink instead. No doubt when attendance at pubs drops again they'll blame it on the supermarkets rather than stuff like this.

PS no I didn't read the article so apologies if this is nothing to do with pubs at all. Just got my goat that's all 😀

Sorry mate they are all classified – if I told you Id have to kill you.. 😉

The pubs that serve you with plastic pint glasses aren't going to be serving you beer anyway so true beer lovers shouldn't suffer.

True, at the moment the places that I go that use plastic glasses are mainly student bars etc… and in most of them you're aiming to drink so much that the taste difference plastic would make is pretty undetectable!

As long as these plastic horrors are restricted to night clubs and city centre chav bars I have no problem I should think ambulance and A+E staff would be glad of the reduction in cases of glassing

At German beer festivals you can get 1 litre MaBkrug glass tankards that weigh a ton at british beer festivals we increasingly get a poxy plastic glass that holds 1/3 of a pint any fancy a STW visit to the Octoberfest

As long as these plastic horrors are restricted to night clubs and city centre chav bars I have no problem I should think ambulance and A+E staff would be glad of the reduction in cases of glassing

Only 'glassings' I've had have been bottles.

Polyprop and other 'plastic' bottles are sold at concerts , much less weidth for launching them at stage or into crowd. There are product life issues however, Coke for example always tastes diferernt out of glass than PE/Pu/alu.
Glasses are toughened now and have to be approved for use and kite marked already ( really should be, not always are ) The BLRA is aware of the problem , but its a tiny minority of idiots who cause big problems.
Trials are being done for much heavy build plastic re-usables, but its expensive not to make a glass a weapon of sorts as its made from glass.
AAMOI we paid iro 60p each for laser etched legal pint glasses, and there must be millions in use in pubs up and down the country.Not an insignificant replacement cost.

People know that this won't be made law, right?

It's the BBC, it's August, and it is probably based on a press release from a pub organisation.

Maybe the problem isn't the glasses. Maybe, and I have no empirical evidence to support this, it's just that some of the people that go out drinking are total scum?

Maybe, as a society we need to start to change our entire attitude to alcohol and start to make getting completely pissed in public less acceptable.

Totally agreed. People who get agressive when they drink shouldn't be allowed the stuff, solve a lot of problems. Maybe make them stand in a cage watching people who can drink without finding the need to start a fight all night.

"That's how you behave like a grown up, come back in five years for another test to see if you've made it yet."

At German beer festivals you can get 1 litre MaBkrug glass tankards that weigh a ton at british beer festivals we increasingly get a poxy plastic glass that holds 1/3 of a pint

You go to the wrong beer festivals – glass pint glass at Worcester (with the option of a half pint glass if you want – a bad idea IME, since if you're drinking halves to try as many as possible you're better off with a pint glass as they tend to give you rather more than a half 🙂 ) Then they give you a plastic bag to put your glass in when you leave to get the bus, as glasses are banned in the city centre 🙄

Strangely enough, given the greatest concentration of drunk people is at the beer festival when that's on, they don't get a single violent incident there.

Strangely enough, given the greatest concentration of drunk people is at the beer festival when that's on, they don't get a single violent incident there.

High proportion of beards and sandals too, which are the greatest peace keepers in the world (see Jesus Christ).

Prefer a glass myself, but would like to see glass being replaced with plastic from about 5th December to 5th January each year. All my commuter punctures happen around then and are due to broken glass in the road outside or close to pubs & bars