The silver lining the day after a good house party is the bottle collection. Sifting through the shattered windows and mangled bodies for those precious unbroken empties can yield valuable extra dollars to go towards next weekend. But what about the Coke bottles lying next to the Jack Daniels? Couldn’t those help you out for next Saturday? Whether to save the environment or simply help poor students recoup their losses, the tiny Nordic country of Finland seems determined to lead the pack of bottle reusing nations. Perhaps Ontario should pick up a few tips.
Every collection day, Toronto blue bins overflow with soft-drink and water bottles. Instead of cramming some landfill in Michigan, these bottles will be melted down and the raw material recycled and put to another use. But before residents pat themselves on the back for their beloved blue bins, it is worth considering the further environmental benefits of using refillable bottles for our water and soft drinks.
Finland is one of the most environmentally conscious nations in the world. From protecting their forest resources to reducing fossil fuel waste, the environment is near the top of Finland’s social conscience. One pillar of their green society is the bottle return.
Since the 1970s, the Finnish system of reusable beverage containers has been protected by a federal tax system. Companies that have no plan for recovery of packaging waste are charged 0.67 euro per liter; for using recyclable materials, 0.17 euro per liter; and for using refillable containers, there is no tax. There have been several challenges to the tax by the beverage industry, but to no avail.
One huge factor is public support of the tax. A Gallup poll in 2001 found that 79 per cent of Finns preferred drinking out of refillable beer bottles, while an overwhelming 94 per cent preferred their soft drink bottles to be refillable.
It is estimated that this refilling program saves up to 380,000 tons of waste each year. And Europe-wide statistics show that although refillable bottles are more expensive to produce initially, they are significantly cheaper in the long run.
The province of Ontario does have a limited system of bottle return, focused principally around the beer industry. Canadian brewers have traditionally used refillable bottles, and in 1989, Ontario began enforcing a levy on imported beverages to promote refillable bottles. Despite being challenged during a trade dispute and attacked by the aluminum industry, this levy has remained in place. It is popular with domestic brewers for both its cost-effectiveness and its environmental benefits.
However, the practice of using refillable bottles has become unpopular in the Canadian soft-drink industry. In 1985, 47 per cent of soft-drink bottles were refillable; by 1997, this figure had dropped to 5 per cent. As an alternative, the soft-drink industry has promoted taxpayer-funded recycling in Ontario as a substitute to reusable bottles. While this is better than simply sending them to a landfill, the costs in energy and water are high. By using refillable bottles, soft-drink companies could save millions of dollars, and the environment would get some much-deserved relief.
So next time you are drinking a bottle of water, do the environment a favour: keep the bottle and the next time you need a drink, use the tap to refill it. Until the Ontario government and industry take on this important environmental responsibility, the onus will be on the consumer to keep the landfills and recycling plants from overflowing with what could easily be reused.
