Borrow a bottle
At Sawmill we were hugely disappointed to see the Container Return Scheme (CRS) dropped. The Zero Waste Network Aotearoa had this to say:
The “reason” given for deferred the container return scheme is so families don’t face additional costs. The reality is we are all already paying to recycle single use drink containers and to clean them up when they become litter and pollution. The cost just shows up on our rates bills and in our rent costs rather than on our supermarket dockets. The difference is that right now we’re paying more than we would be under a CRS, for a much worse outcome, where 55% of beverage containers end up as pollution in landfills or as litter on roadsides, rivers and the ocean.
In the meantime we want to make a greater effort to get people into reusing glass by instigating a deposit scheme on our glass flagons. Where as previously people had to buy these now they can now be ‘borrowed’.
A deposit of $11 / $16 is payable on the one and two litre flagons respectively. This is the same price as buying them in the event you decide to keep it.
When you return it you’ll get that money back. Its simple and we hope will lead to more glass being reused.
Thanks for being awesome.
Terms and conditions. Not many.
- Only the flagons borrowed under the scheme can be returned.
- The bottles need to come back in good condition – scratches are fine, but chips in the glass mean we can't use them again.
See this study for more information, although to be honest the internet is rife with data supporting this.
The results showed that when reusable glass bottles were reused just 5 times, the overall CO2 emissions of the product life cycle were reduced by over a third compared to single-use glass bottles.