SteveUsername: Quane |
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RecyclerIndustry
Non-foodRecent Discussions
The Milk Man method.
Has any thought been put into the banishment of plastics that are tossed as packaging and a return to the refillable container system? Imagine a consumer returning to a grocer with a multitude of well made glass containers, and either exchanging them for already full containers or refilling these containers themselves. Shelf life of a product might force an exchange method, but waste could be eliminated on a massive scale. My ignorance comes into play in not knowing if glass ever releases any of the toxins into its contents that some plastics can on continual use.
Posted November 30, 2009
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Non-return as the ROI
Dean, great reply sir. Would it be feasible for these companies to come to think of non-return of the packaging (which would entail a markup) as a portion of their beloved bottom line? So many manufacturers seem to love coupons (yay wasting even more paper in a paperless capable society) that it seems a system that provides a customer with an in-store ident-card, could easily replace printed coupons. This leads into the idea that the coupons discount would be applied to the card upon return, and taken off the top at check out. If there is no return of the reusable containers, there is no discount. If the containers were damaged or returned uncleaned the discount could also not apply or simply be less than the most possible. Perhaps this concept is something of a pipe dream, but I know I'd much rather carry a crate of reusable containers with me to the grocer on each trip than carry that same crate out to be dumped as waste. Perhaps we will see some stores such as World Market or Trader Joe's move towards a closed system of reusing containers. Displaying my ignorance again, but I cannot see how creating new packaging for all of these products would be cheaper than cleaning reusable packaging. But that doesn't take into account the creating of those reusable packaging materials that are destroyed (as opposed to the cost of cleaning returns). Of course, I've always thought there should be a tax levied against the companies producing waste packaging for a product, just to get them to lower the amount of superfluous packaging that exists in many material products, just for marketing sake.