Do you ever get the impression that we are drowning in packaging waste?

It is cheaper for importers and manufacturers to package liquids in plastic, partly because plastic can be made cheaply from oil, but mostly, because they don't have to pay for the disposal of the plastic, we the customers do.

Putting a value on bottles, like a returnable deposit, would put the onus back on the manufacturer or importer to deal with it, which would mean less waste in your bin which you have to pay for, and less plastic bottles thrown around the city streets and the canal. 

I set up a facebook cause a few years ago called "Bring Back the Glass bottle, which you can access here http://www.causes.com/causes/197044  This group calls for adding a deposit to all bottles.  The effect of this would mean that people would get money back when they returned the bottles or cans, be they plastic, glass or aluminium, to shops that supplied them, and from there to the manufacturer/ importer.

This would mean that the use of glass, which is reusable, and aluminium, which is more easily recycled, would be encouraged at the expense of plastic, the ingredients of which have to be imported.  This would create employment, and improve our environment, an keep money in the country.

There is also an American group on facebook which you can access here www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2217798927&ref=ts and a website called www.friendsofglass.com which have similar ideas.  The Bottle Bill organisation in the US,  http://www.bottlebill.org/, have many ideas on campaigning for a deposit and there are more ideas at the Glass Packaging Institute recycling page.

I made a submission to the Department of the Environment as part of a review of their waste strategy and  have blogged on this in August 2010, and you can see my blog here