Is It Feasable To Go Back To Glass Bottles With Deposits Like In The Old Days?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42455378
I don't really know the details but there was a time when we truly recycled bottles etc by actually reusing and charging a deposit. Now that china won't take our recyclable plastic could it be time to look again at this? Also there must be huge emission cost in the fuel to ship them to China and to re manufacture so we'd be saving that too.

[Patsy33]

I agree with 237SJ.
I tried to refill the same little plastic bottle with tap water each time I go out.

[youngmafbog]

Buy a specialised water bottle - they last for years and years.

[woofgang]

Eddie its interesting about the price of glass. Our local council have stopped sorting glass by colour or asking the householder to do it because they say that the value of clear glass now doesn't warrant it.

[New Judge]

“My mate and I went round and picked up a few dozen bottles and took them back. We got enough for 2 ice creams each and a ticket into the pool. Happy days.”

Yes, happy days indeed. Meanwhile, back in the here and now, here's a few reasons why this ain't gonna happen.

The vast majority of drinks that are sold in plastic bottles are sold by supermarkets. There is absolutely no way that the likes of Tesco's and Sainsbury's are going to set up the logistics to receive empties, provide a refund, then store and return them to, probably, dozens of suppliers. More than that, the difference in weight between a glass bottle and its plastic counterpart is considerable and will add quite a bit to the distribution costs (and hence the price) of the product. Customers (many of whom, judged by what they buy, seem to have far more money than sense) are simply not going to be bothered to return bottles for a few pence refund. They'll just consider the cost of the deposit as part of the price of the drink and chuck the bottle in the bin.

Eddie's wistful reminiscences of collecting Tizer bottles for a few pence extra spending money are consigned to the past along with brown ale and Provident cheques. Young people today have more than enough cash to spend on frivolities and they do not have to scavenge among the detritus left by others to find a few bottles which are unlikely to raise enough money to buy a Big Mac.

[Tuvok]

Years ago when the house next door was being rebuilt I would collect all the empty lemonade bottles left by the workmen and cashed them in.

Don't know if the workmen ever wondered where the empties went!

[mikey4444]

NJ....I fear you are 100% correct....we live in very different times since the 60's.

[douglas9401]

If it's declared as required by government then Tesco, Sainsbury's et al will just have to suck it up.

[mikey4444]

Dougie....wishful thinking I'm afraid....our present Government seem to have got its hands somewhat full at the moment !

[jno]

douglas, they've stopped dishing out plastic bags like confetti, so you may well be right. I wouldn't have picked that to happen without government action.

[EDDIE51]

Just on the TV news. China Waste Ban.
The UK currently sends China 1500 tonnes of waste plastic a week! So that is 1500 tonnes a week we will have to find another way to get rid of. Not good news.

[Jackdaw33]

Brown ale is still around. We used to nick empties from behind the local club and take them to a nearby shop. The shop got wise and started putting stamps on their bottles. No stamp - no refund.

[New Judge]

Yes that is another consideration, JD.

Tesco’s are hardly likely to take in all the empties from the district and shoppers will have to remember where they bought their drinks. The country has enough frivolous legislation with which to comply without introducing more such as this.

Glass waste is not a particular problem. It has plenty of uses: as well as making new bottles it can be used for grit-blasting and road construction among other things. At the other end it can simply be dumped in landfill. It presents no particular hazards and there are plenty of holes that need filling up. Quite a bit of cullet finishes up there anyway for various reasons which you wouldn’t believe if I told you.

But manufacturers are not going to go over to heavy glass when they can use lightweight plastic. The country needs to accept this and find ways to deal with it that don’t involve carting it halfway around the globe. Governments need to finding ways of dealing with what people want to do rather than preventing them from doing it.

[Jackdaw33]

Although there was no deposit involved I remember every night my mother would rinse out the empty milk bottles and leave them on the doorstep for the milkman to collect the next morning. We got our milk from the Co-op. They operated a plastic token system. You bought your tokens from the shop and then would put one token for each bottle you wanted in the empties. That was until some people had the bright idea of going round the doorsteps early morning to nick the tokens.

[vulcan42]

I mentioned on here recently there is a scheme, in it's infancy at the moment, where plastic is being used to repair roads and experiments made to see if roads can be built using waste plastic. There are millions of potholes out there just waiting to be filled for a start.

[mikey4444]

We might have a choice not to buy some things in plastic, but that doesn't extend to milk. I haven't seen a milkman or a glass milk bottle in my area for nearly 20 years.

[ToraToraTora]

right so we need to get better at recycling the plastic ourselves then or at least without shipping it half way round the world.

[bhg481]

It's interesting that the panic is being caused by China refusing to take our p[lastic for recycling. I wonder how much of the plastic comes FROM China in the first place, wrapped around imports.