At 04:59 PM 2/7/99 -0600, RecycleWorlds wrote:
> Let me add some
>background information about this issue to provide some rays of hope.
(snip)>
> It would seem that it should behoove the recycling community to
help>clearly educate the brewery industry to our precise needs in order
to>"push" the technology to make it possible for both industries to win.
Thank you, Peter, for all this helpful info in one place!
My sense is that encouraging the beverage industries to design for
recycling is a more winnable effort than encouraging them to dismantle
their distribution infrastructure and return to refillable (glass) bottles,
much as we would love to have local bottling plants in our communities again.
My sense is that when the time is right, local refill players will
re-emerge in the market, exploiting niche opportunities. (I also expect
that when that time comes, they will do so in a plastic container -- and
for the good reason that the glass container industry has diminished to a
few huge mega-plants, while plastic convertors can operate at a smaller
local scale. Is this true, Peter?)
H.
Helen Spiegelman
3570 West 22nd Avenue
Vancouver, British Columbia
CANADA
604/731-8464
604/731-8463 (fax)