Eco-chic: Greenwashing from the Liquor Store
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 05. 5.06
In Ontario Canada, we go to the beer store, owned by the brewers and operated cooperatively, or the liquor store, owned by the Government. One would think that a government would push recycling and the private company would pay lip service to it, but in fact the Brewers run one of the best recycling systems in the world, re-using 98% of the bottles up to 25 times, and have been at it since 1927. The Government, or Liquor Control Board (LCBO) refuses to do recycling. They won't even take back beer bottles. Instead, they start an egregious greenwashing campaign with Eco-Chic- a brochure (on recycled paper) promoting Tetra Pak wine, PET liquor bottles and, yes, aluminum cans. They actually have an "enviro-tip"- "pre-mixed drinks require less over-all packaging" which is just not true: The Mott's Clamato shown has 1.5 ounces of vodka, so it would take 22 cans of motts to get as much vodka as a single 35 ounce bottle. We would boycott them if they were not a monopoly and we were not so angry that we needed a drink. ::LCBO
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Boycotting a public monopoly has little impact. They don't live under the profit motive like private companies. It might be more effective to put public pressure on those elected officials responsible for oversight of this monopoly.
I once worked in an Ontario brewery (back in my student days), and the bottling part of the plant was very impressive. We'd receive boxed empties, the bottles would be blown out and sterilized (you can imaging the multitude of stuff in the bottles!), X-rayed for integrity, and then refilled with ambrosia :)
It was very impressive reuse, and the industry has been running like that for a long time.
While I'd like to think it was out of their own concern, undoubtably it was because of the economics (glass is expensive!). As oil prices rise, I suspect we'll see more things become well-reused (though sadly, the cost of reprocessing goes up too...but hopefully the cost of reusing stays well above the cost of reprocessing, so the manufacturers stay interested by the dollars [so we don't have to depend on their conscience!]).
It's not just Ontario. I lived in Nova Scotia and they have Govt. Beer/Liquor stores and take back beer bottles for reuse. When I moved to the US I was shocked that a similar system doesn't exist.
It makes sense, beer truck delivers beer to store, picks up emptys and returns them to brewry. The bottles are a standard shape and the label washes off so relabeling's a snap.
Canada still has government-run liquor stores? What year is this? 1935?
The better to collect "sin" tax. Just try to buy a pack of smokes, sticker shock.
The same system is used in Mexico, though it extends to soda bottles as well, and I'm not sure whether the government is behind it. Recently, companies have started switching to cans which means you can't take your empties to the store to collect your deposit (or put it toward another 6-pack). This has also resulted in a crap-load more waste in rural areas where trash pick-up doesn't exist, but drinking beverages certainly does. I never understood why companies would want to make the switch from a reusable resource that they own, to dead-end packaging that have to keep purchasing over and over again.
I remember soda bottles that you could return for a deposit. When I was a kid we'd look for those bottles of the sides of paths and such. Kept us in candy :-). Then they switched to non-returnable glass, then plastic. Too bad because the bottles used to have more personality. The 12oz Crush with the orange peel around the neck, cokes shape looks better in glass. Pepsi had the twists on the sides of it's bottle. 7 Up was green and Fanta if I remember had bubbles on the neck. Now it's a plastic world. I guess heavy glass costs more to ship but for some reason a cold coke in a 6oz narrow waist glass bottle tastes better than from a can or plastic bottle.
The LCBO does not make it easy for those of us wishing to buy organic liquors. Their organic wine selection is growing, but we are still unable to buy organic or fair-trade rum, whiskey and affordable eco vodka. I wish I could boycott them, but as an Ontario resident I can only bring so much when I travel.