My wishes for Christmas 2017 include the following: that people stop smoking; or at the very least, that people who litter unfinished cigarettes and/or cigarette butts are made to eat them; and, that consumers turn back to glass bottles from plastic bottles. And on both counts, more taxes please: higher taxes on cigarettes, and an environment tax on plastic bottles.
Of course, the first wish is more wishful thinking. For people will never stop smoking, illegally if they have to, and in spite of rising taxes on cigarettes and more graphic health warnings. And, cigarette butts will always end up on our streets, despite penalties for illegal smoking and littering. Public roads and public spaces are convenient public ashtrays for the inconsiderate.
The second wish, however, seems to have a fighting chance. Ongoing public campaigns may yet convince more consumers — and policy makers — on the need to ease up on plastic use for consumer packaging. There are plenty of research materials available to the public demonstrating the extent of the environmental damage related to plastic use.
In this regard, I am happy to find out that at least a couple of local beverage makers are moving towards alternatives to plastic bottles. One local beverage producer has started to use small glass bottles with metal crowns for its chocolate milk products; while another producer has resorted to canning its various coffee drinks.
I am uncertain whether this particular shift was prompted by environmental or by practical or economic considerations.
For one, a shift to glass bottling for chocolate milk products may be a hedge against a future tax — or regulation — on the use of plastic bottles. Incidentally, shifting to chocolate milk — from other beverages — may help the same manufacturer avoid the recently legislated tax on sweetened beverages.
As for the coffee producer, I think sweetened coffee beverages also avoid the new tax on sugary drinks. And shifting to canning or tinning their beverages allows the manufacturer to offer the product through vending machines, and serve them hot or cold. A pre-mixed, sweetened coffee beverage cannot be sold hot — even warm — through a vending machine if in a glass or plastic bottle.
Hot or cold coffee, sweetened, in tin or aluminum cans, and sold through coin-operated vending machines have been available in cities like Tokyo for some time now. While one would think that such a beverage will be more popular in places with a winter season, I believe there is a market for such even in tropical countries like the Philippines as an alternative to expensive to-go coffee from places like Starbucks.
To date, a small cup of hot coffee can be bought in neighborhood vending machines for P5-10. The paper cup has no cover, and is not easy to transport. A cup of to-go coffee, in a paper cup with sleeve and cover, from Starbucks can set you back by about P100. A canned coffee drink can be bought from supermarkets for about P40. Primarily sold as a cold drink at present, I believe these can be sold in vending machines as a hot coffee in the very near future.
If memory serves me, until about the late 1980s or early 1990s, beverage makers in the Philippines still used primarily glass bottles for their products. In fact, when I was a boy in the 1970s, we used to buy Magnolia chocolate milk in rectangular prism glass bottles, or in glass soda bottles (Choco-Vim). I don’t recall coffee beverages being sold to-go back then.
It was in the late 1970s, if I recall correctly, that Sunkist Orange in tetra-wedges were sold locally, signaling the break away from glass bottles. And shortly thereafter, in the early 1980s, even Magnolia chocolate milk discarded its glass bottles and shifted to tetra-brick packaging. Beer, liquor, and wine remained in glass bottles, however.
Later in the 1980s, glass use further waned as plastic bottles for carbonated beverages became the norm. Even sauces, soy sauce, and vinegar were sold on supermarket shelves had shifted to plastic bottles. The same happened to cooking oil that used to be sold in tin or cans. And then in the 1990s bottled water came into the picture.
By 2016, roughly 480 billion of plastic drinking bottles were reportedly sold (and less than half were recycled), according to a June 2017 report in online publication TheGuardian.com. But, with almost half a trillion plastic bottles produced and used and then discarded yearly, what happens to them after sale poses a big environmental problem for the world to resolve.
About 10% of plastic manufactured worldwide ends up in the ocean, mostly on the ocean floor where they will never degrade; and, 80% of water bottles end up in landfills, according to a commentary in the Huffington Post by writer Norm Schriever. He had also noted that the US national recycle rate for PET bottles is only 23%, and that every square mile of the ocean has over 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in it.
Moreover, “it takes three times the volume of water to manufacture one bottle of water than it does to fill it,” as he had noted that 17 million barrels of oil were used each year just to produce water bottles. Citing figures from the Earth Policy Institute, he had noted that energy used to pump, process, transport, and refrigerate bottled water was at over 50 million oil barrels yearly.
Where we go from here is anybody’s guess. While some local beverage producers have initiated a shift from plastic bottles, I believe a lot more can still be done by policy makers in incentivizing producers and consumers to shift to alternatives to plastic packaging. I still think a tax on plastic bottles is a step in the right direction.
Segregation and incentivizing recycling plastic bottles are not enough. We need something more drastic, and more urgent. People cannot use and discard plastic bottles if they cannot buy them. And people cannot buy them if manufacturers will not use and sell them. Beating our addiction to plastic bottles will be difficult, but not impossible. We all just need to work on it, one day at a time.
Marvin A. Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippines Press Council.
