It lacks economic and common sense that a glass container
is manufactured, used once and then either discarded or
melted down and reformed into another container. This is
exceedingly wasteful of materials and energy. A glass
container can be re-used in its current form many times
(up to twenty times) without significant degradation, as
witnessed by drinking glasses. The current system is a
failure of the market place which can be rectified with
modest Government leadership.
The reason why reuse does not occur now is the huge range
of glass container shapes. With the current situation
containers used by say "Kraft Foods" for peanut butter can
only go back to "Kraft Foods" if they were to be reused.
Similarly for other manufacturers. Consequently the cost
of collecting and sorting the containers from each
manufacturer is high and the logistics a nightmare. A
collection company would need to have the area to separate
hundreds of different types of containers and staff who
are able to recognise which glass container belongs in
which pile. Similar problems arise with a deposit system.
This is why reuse is deemed impractical and uneconomic by
recyclers and food producers alike. If however Standard
Containers were used by not just "Kraft" but other food
producers as well then you would get an economy of scale
and simplicity of sorting which would make collection,
cleaning and reuse worthwhile for the collector and the
food producer.
This paper contains an outline of a method of
implementation of Standardised Glass Containers in
Australia.
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Standards Australia is an organisation in Australia
that, through industry, professional and Government
support, prepares Australian Standards that define
acceptable standards and guidelines for design,
operations and manufacture within an industry. This is
for the benefit of the industry and for Australia in
general.
Therefore the first step in the Standardisation of
glass containers in Australia is the development of an
Australian Standard (AS) for (glass) Containers.
Standardisation will mean that there will be one or
two types of interchangeable container for each size
of product sold. Eg 50 ml, 100 ml, 200 ml, 250 ml, 375
ml 500 ml, 750 ml, 1000 ml, 1250 ml. There would need
to be both bottle and jar types in some sizes.
Consequently there would be 11 to 13 different
container types. These Standard Glass Containers will
have one type of lid for each size (although some lids
may suit a number of container sizes). Reuse of lids
could also be considered. Labels will be stick-on and
will come off in water (the requirements for the glue
will be as specified in Australian Standard). All
Standard containers would have the AS logo on them to
allow easy differentiation from non standard
containers. Design will be based on ease of use and of
re-use, suitability for a range of products, washing,
longevity and current popular glass container design.
There will also need to be bans on their usage for
containing certain noxious materials (some supporting
legislation may be needed). The AS Standard would also
include standards for cleaning, glass condition and
testing.
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The AS containers would be collected for reuse
through the now well established and well-used local
council recycling kerbside pickup system. Introduction
of an expensive deposit system and an alternate
collection system would not be necessary. After
collection, instead of the glass containers going to
be crushed, melted and reformed, they could be on sold
to companies specialising in washing and sanitising
the AS compliant containers. These companies would
then resell the containers to the food producers.
Consequently a container that may have held honey from
Capilano originally may be sold to Kraft for peanut
butter.
AS containers would cut down on the transportation of
empty containers as food producers would be able to
source reused containers from their local township
where they operate. For example Ardmona would be able
to source reused containers from Shepparton instead of
getting new containers from Melbourne. Containers that
may have once held honey consumed by Shepparton
residents could be collected and cleaned by the local
recycler and sold to Ardmona for use as a fruit
container.
The standardised container solves the problem of
sorting the glass containers into a very large variety
of containers that can only then be sold to the food
producer who uses that particular container shape. The
standardisation to only 11 to 13 different types makes
glass container reuse practicable and commercial.
The food producers would differentiate their products
by labelling and brand name recognition (as is
presently done with carton milk and some brands of
beer).
This re-use system would boost the currently
struggling recycling industry, providing an additional
reliable and higher value income stream.
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Use of AS containers need not be compulsory.
Companies will be encouraged to use the new container
through advertisement and subsequent public pressure -
it will be seen as anti- social not to use AS
containers. The pricing of these reused containers
would also be very attractive to food producers when
compared to new containers. As a back-up there could
be a taxing regime for the purchase non AS containers.
This would be in the form of a sales tax that would
not apply to the reusable containers. This charge will
reflect the cost to the community for landfill usage,
carbon emissions due to inefficient energy use and the
community priority for efficiency of resource use (and
also high enough to make the AS reusable containers
more competitive against new one use containers if
this is necessary).
Importers who supply imported product in non Standard
containers would also have to pay this tax. There is
no reason why the overseas producer if interested in
suppling the Australian market should not also use
Australian Standard containers as the complete
specification of the containers will be available to
all people and could just as easily be produced by an
overseas container manufacturer. Alternately the
importer can import product in bulk for packaging in
Australia, which is environmentally preferable anyway.
One of the major social benefits of a sales tax as
opposed to a GST is that items that are seen to be
socially beneficial can easily be given a tax
advantage that reflects that social benefit. A GST by
comparison taxes Mercedes Benz cars at the same rate
as food. A tax regime should also be considered for
steel and other containers to encourage the change
over to reusable glass.
As an alternative (or complementary) to the sales tax
approach to encourage the use of Standard containers
Government could legislatively mandate that Companies
to recover a large percentage of the containers that
they use for production. The method of achieving that
requirement would be the Company’s choice. The Company
could maintain their current diverse range of
containers and introduce and operate an expensive
deposit system, or use the cheap option of Standard
containers and let the recycling industry recover and
supply them with cleaned Standard containers at a
fraction of the cost through the kerbside pick-up
system.
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Innovative ways of cleaning glass containers may need
to be developed if they do not exist already. This is
to cut down on energy and wash water waste from
cleaning containers. This would have to be less than
the energy usage from remelting and forming new
containers from recycled glass or forming from new
materials.
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There would probably be opposition from the producers
of glass containers as their production would be
decreased significantly over time. However the market
would force them to comply as the demand from food
producers for the AS containers increased.
Some transition protection may need to be considered
for the companies and workers in the new glass
container production industry. Jobs would be created
in the container collection /cleaning /re-use
industry. There would be no net loss of jobs, and
potentially a net gain as a machine and energy
intensive system is replaced with a more labour
intensive industry for sorting the collected
containers (although this too could be eventually
mechanised, with some form of bar coding on the
standard containers allowing mechanisation of
sorting).
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Even if the taxing incentives were thought to be
politically or financially unsustainable (although I
fail to see why) merely the introduction of the
Australian Standard may encourage the adoption of the
standard containers by some food producers. (This
approach would work well if a commitment had been
received from a couple of the major food producers to
use the Standard containers, prior to the release of
the Australian Standard.) Even if initially, because
of low volumes, reuse of the containers did not occur
very little cost would have been incurred and it would
create a base that would expand until a critical mass
is reached and reuse would become economical.
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The development of a new Standard commences with a
request to Standards Australia from the community,
usually an industry group or Government, for a
Standard that cover a particular area. In this case it
is unlikely that glass container manufacturers will
lobby for the development of such a Standard for their
industry. Therefore the initiative should come from
Government (or alternately a well established and
recognised community group) requesting the development
of the Standard. Key food producers should also be
consulted, the benefits explained and their support
enlisted for the Standardisation. Support from the
recycling industry should also be sort. Once the
request is received Standards Australia then considers
whether there is Community support for the new
Standard and that it is in the national interest. If
decided in the affirmative Standards Australia
assembles a Technical Committee comprising industry
and other expertise. This Committee has the task of
developing the Standard. If co-operation was not
forthcoming from industry then University or overseas
expertise would have to be used to formulate the
Standard. (Industry may be forced to co-operate once
the first draft was circulated and introduction was
seen as inevitable.)
To show that Standardisation is not beyond the realm
of the type of things that Standards Australia involve
themselves in, a Standard already exists for milk
bottles. This would have been useful to the industry
at the time all milk was in reusable bottles when
there were a number of companies supplying milk and
using the bottles. (Paradoxically milk is one of the
food items that is least suitable for reusable
containers because its high protein content makes
cleaning of the containers difficult and energy
consuming. Milk would probably remain in cartons
unless this cleaning problem can be solved.)
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Food producers that currently use steel or plastic
containers should be encouraged to change over to
glass containers.
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Once implemented for glass containers consideration
should be given to the introduction of a reuse scheme
for other non glass containers in areas other than
food production. This would be most effective for
containers that could not be replaced with glass.
Examples of this are the plastic trigger squeeze
containers for bathroom and kitchen cleaners,
dishwashing detergent bottles and hair shampoo
containers. (Manufacturers of Weedkillers, etc. would
have to be banned from using these standard plastic
containers, possibly having their own range of
containers of different colours.) Exactly the same
approach for the reuse of plastic containers could be
utilised as outlined above for glass containers.