Politics, News & Issues >
Conservation
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedShould consumers have the option of reusable glass bottles?
Results so far:
| Yes | 94% | 111 votes | Total: 118 votes | |
| No | 6% | 7 votes |
Yes
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesSometimes good practices are discarded. Soda pop bottling execs thought they had good reason to discard reusable bottles. Perhaps they did at the time. People were generally unconcerned with the environment, convenience ruled the day. However we have begun to see the result of discarding billions of throw away containers and its result on the environment. In retrospect, the execs did not make the best choice. Storing and returning bottles is inconvenient but so is recycling. According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), the number of plastic soda bottles discarded is
increasing dramatically while the number of recycled bottles is dropping. Their analysis shows an increase of trashed bottles from 7.6 billion in 1994 to 15.1 billion in 1998. On their website a counter is clicking away and is currently in excess of 81 billion. As far as the environmental impact of washing reusable bottles, there is new technology available which includes water reuse and energy savings. Additionally, consider most plastic is made from oil and accounts for about 4% of of it use.
I'm not advocating doing away with the use of plastic bottles or aluminum cans. I'm saying consumers should have a choice. I had much rather have the option of returning an "empty" to the grocery store as tossing it in the trash or storing and making a trip to a recycling facility. Key to the acceptability of reusable bottles is how compaines implement it. If the deposit or initial cost of each bottle were substantial then only those people who intended on returning it would buy glass. Maybe not all, but the worth of "empties" would doubtless attract those people inclined to pick up aluminum cans.
Learn more about this author, David Oliver.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
No
How would you propose we enforce a consumer "option" for reusable glass bottles? We, as consumers, have the greatest of all options: we have the right to choose to buy, or not to buy. When we want a cold drink, we can select from literally hundreds of offerings from dozens of vendors. Plastic, aluminum, glass, boxed, foil - containers of all sizes, shapes, and prices. Every time we make a purchase, we cast a vote.
Reusable glass bottles were once the rule, not the exception. Remember the unmistakable sound of milk-bottles arriving at dawn? My original barber had a very jazzy Coke dispenser in his store. It offered eight-ounce green bottles you had to slide along metal rails; each bottle was a nickel! My favorite returnables came from the Royal Crown Cola Company ("RC Cola"). Every one of the tall sixteen-ounce bottles was worth a dime. (This, at a time when our weekly allowance was ten cents!)None of those containers are regularly used today.
Personally, I prefer to buy my Diet Pepsi in twelve-ounce aluminum cans. That's my choice. I don't like the taste of plastic. I'm glad that Snapple is served in glass bottles. Very refreshing. We pay a five-cent deposit here in New York on many of our beverage containers. It's a good law; there's a lot less litter on the roadside now. However, would you want our state legislature to mandate that every drink supplier offer its products in reusable bottles? Seems like a rather harsh and arbitrary decree - burdensome for everyone involved, from bottler to retailer.
Let's continue to Vote Green with our purchasing habits. Recycle your plastic, metal, and glass containers. That's a sensible system, one that doesn't require the installation of large-scale disinfection facilities. We have plenty of well-intended laws right now, designed to help save the planet. Let's not try to legislate a return to the halcyon days of RC Cola in the big clear bottles.
copyright 2007 - all rights reserved
Learn more about this author, Jim Bessey.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Conservation
- Do individual consumer choices make a difference in creating a more sustainable society?
- Should the Springfield City Council continue to pursue construction of Hunter Lake as a backup water source to Lake Springfield?
- Will there be wars over the ownership of water?
- Wildfires in national parks: Let them burn naturally or extinguish at all costs?
- In calculating endangered fish species, should hatchery populations be counted or just wild fish?
