I am living in a unique economy here in Tunisia. One big difference that I see is the persistence of returnable glass in the supply chain of liquid consumer goods. In much of the western world, this is something from days gone by. The only niches where it has persisted is with beer and to a lesser extent wine.
Three doors down from where I live, a typical neighborhood shop sells cooking oil, vinegar, bleach and detergents in identical bottles that are delivered and picked up by the same truck. The soft drink suppliers bring both plastic and glass to the store, but they only pick up the glass.
My casual observation is that close to half of the non beverage trade of liquids is carried out using returnable glass.
Plastic and aluminum appears to have returnable glass beat in the beverage trade. I could be wrong about this. When I attended a wedding reception this summer, I was served a 200ml returnable glass bottle of soft drink. Most small stores have soft drinks available in both returnable and disposable containers. Local customers are often not charged the deposit with the understanding that they will bring the bottle back to the store in a timely fashion.
It’s actually a lot like North America 30 years ago. I would love to see someone do a careful study of the environmental costs of the two options in a small economy.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:43 am
I love returnable glass bottles! Of course, for me it’s a purely hypothetical love, but still. So glad it still exists somewhere in the world…