Bajan Sun Magazine - Caribbean Entrepreneurs Vol 1 Issue 10 | Page 135

BAJAN SUN MAGAZINE DEC 2014 RUM SHOP TALK Recycling Rum Bottles required to melt the glass, make new bottles and then distribute the remade glass back to the bottler. In the not-to-distant past, CocaCola reused almost all of their bottles on the local level. Now you can hardly buy a Coke in a glass bottle. A growing number of US states and here in Barbados charge a deposit on beverage containers so why not save more energy and reuse the glass. I know that as consumers we don't go through as many rum bottles as commercial enterprises, while our popular Bars & Rum Shops see hundreds disposed of per week. I n the islands it is a common practice to recycle beer bottles by returning them to the distributors where they are washed and re-used. Rum bottles however are thrown in the garbage. I recently had a discussion with a relatively small vodka producer in the US and suggested that if he would offer his customers the opportunity to recycle their bottles they would jump at the chance, especially in places like San Francisco where people are some of the most environmentally conscious in the country. As consumers would you endorse a company that was trying to do the right thing in regards to the environment? Would you consider this, does this make sense to you? If given the opportunity to recycle your empty rum bottles would you endorse the practice. By recycle I don't mean melting them down to make more glass but rather reusing them without wasting most of the energy www.bajansunonline.com/MAGAZINE/ | [email protected] | @BajanSunOnline