Do it with Glass - A Sustainable Twist on Top of an Old Business Model
My wife brought home this 2L bottle of Charlie's orange juice and I was thinking it was quite a good idea denting the plastic on one side so that it is both easy to carry and to pour.
I shared the picture with some people on social media and someone said "It would be good if it was made of glass."
Having been made redundant this last week, I'm thinking about business ideas and as I do when I look around my pet hate. BAU.
I did a really quick search about how many plastic bottles get used for juice in New Zealand and I found a Stuff story from almost exactly 3 years ago, about a new fruit juice bottling plant that Coca-Cola Amatil opened in Auckland. Now remember this is just one manufacturer, albeit one of the biggest and that factory in 2016 was able to produce 800,000 plastic bottles in a day. I acknowledge that this factory uses less plastic per bottle through new nitro hot-fill technology than some other manufacturers, but almost a million bottles a day!
We generally hear about the end product, but I thought a little about how they make your everyday plastic. It's typically made from toxic materials like benzene and vinyl hydrochloride. They will be toxic forever. These chemicals are known to cause cancer. I'm in remission, but I have cancer, so this is a little personal. As well as the bottles themselves, the byproducts contaminate our soil, our air and our environment. All so we can drink healthy fruit juice.
What sort of volumes are we talking about in our little country of New Zealand at the bottom of the planet? Clean green New Zealand? One of many fruit juice factories in New Zealand alone, is making 292 million plastic bottles a year mostly for domestic consumption! This is not Coca-Cola bottles, just fruit juice!
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA?
It's so simple it's ridiculous, but perhaps that's why sometimes these things take a while to get to market. BYO Bottle.
Back in the day
When I was a kid, my parents would venture out for a Sunday drive out west, with empty half gallon jars. They would venture to vineyards out Henderson, Swanson way and go wine tasting. The wines (and sometimes juices) they liked would go into the half gallon jars together with memories of the people they met.
It was cheaper than going to a liquor store, it supported local business, it was an outing and it was sustainable.
So here we are drinking nice fresh fruit juice, from a plastic bottle which will then be dumped in the recycle bin with every likelihood of becoming landfill or worse.
So why not create a business that makes and sells fresh fruit juice, ship it daily in bulk to a store which either pumps it straight into your own bottles, or allows you to pay a bit extra and swap bottles just as we do with gas bottles for the BBQ?
Overall costs are reduced because the supplier does not have to buy bottles, they don't need a factory to fill the bottles and put that special dent in the top like my Charlie's bottle, although you could get clever with bottle design to make them easier to carry and pour, because glass is heavier than plastic.
How could this work?
- How about Juice Shacks in shopping malls where you can BYOB or Swap one for a fee.
- Those fruit shops on the side of the road attached to orchards could sell their own fresh juice and pump it into your own bottle.
- Specialist stores in shopping malls.
- Supermarkets and Liquor Stores could have a BYOB section just like Ned Kelly Liquor did some years ago.
As I said, I'm not interested in pursuing this one. I'm busy thinking about those billion trees we plan to plant. Got some ideas working on that one too.