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http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2009/09/think-green-thursday_10.html
This plastic bottle of water bottled by the Waiwera water co makes me so proud of New Zealand. It is not the contents of still artesian water with the label "Make New Zealand beautiful" but the $.10 refund in S.A.
I asked around, S.A. stands for South Australia. Apparently, over there, they don't have a recycling system of plastic bottles like we do in New Zealand. To encourage the South Australians to recycle, they entice the people to recycle by refunding $.10 at collection depots. Ten cents is not much, but a lot of ten cents is huge on the environment.
Ka Pai and Paki-paki Waiwera water company for spreading the message of recycling across the Tasman to Australian.
When I was young, we had this old man who came in a rickshaw. He blared his hand held horn, and we kids would rush out with our empty bottles. This old man was quite crafty, bottles like cordial juice and soya sauce were 1 cent each, and coca cola bottles were something like 5 cents. Still good money for little kids. The trouble was coca cola suppliers charge a retainer when mum bought her crate of drinks. They were something like 10 cents a bottle.
So when we took mum's coca bottles and redeemed them for 5 cents each, mum had to forfeit her 10 cents when she returned her bottles to the supplier. You can imagine mum telling us off.
When I was at the University in Canada, a flat mate's family ran a coffee shop. I was by then exposed to the big conglomerate. He said, the coca company was even worst. They fine you if you didn't return the right number of bottles, and if you got extra bottles, they would happily take them off from you for free!!!!
In Singapore, these rag and bone men are called Garung Guni men. They go about either calling out loudly "Garung Guni" or they blare their horn. They make a living of this. Then about six years ago, there was again big "conglomerates" or government recycling initiatives collecting newspaper, etc. The Garung Guni men were very upset. There were cases that Garung Guni men were accused of stealing from these conglomerates.
4 comments:
I remember the bottle man. He also called out "bo tut" "bo tut"..he liked the beer bottles best...
Ta Fong bottles were returned to the company at Central Road and we redeemed a wooden crate after soo many bottles...they were called "half bottles". Dolly Lau's father was the owner.
recycle newspaper too
A smile from SJ =)
When I was a boy it was the same here in NZ. You received 1 penny foreach beer bottle and 2 pennies for each soft drink bottle. Glass milk bottles were also worth something. It made people return their empty bottles. A great idea which we should still have. - Dave
When I was a girl we had a Rag and Bone man. He would come by with his horse and cart shouting "Rag and Bones" and you could give him virtually anything to recycle.
The bottle idea is a really good one but in Wales we have a recycling scheme in place and we can recycle them with ease.
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