T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion

De­vel­oped and non-de­vel­oped coun­tries across the globe have, for many decades, suc­cess­ful­ly op­er­at­ed closed-loop re­cy­cling sys­tems for bev­er­age con­tain­ers. The guid­ing prin­ci­ple be­hind this is to en­sure that once these bev­er­ages are con­sumed, the bot­tles are re­turned to their point of ori­gin, ei­ther for re­cy­cling there­in, for ex­port, or re-use (where pos­si­ble).

Ef­fec­tive op­er­a­tion of such a sys­tem in any coun­try dic­tates that pro­duc­ers, re­tail­ers, con­sumers, and col­lec­tors are cog­nisant of what is re­quired of them at each stage of what is of­ten de­scribed as a “De­posit-Re­fund Mech­a­nism”. Such cog­ni­sance is fa­cil­i­tat­ed by leg­is­la­tion that is clear, well struc­tured, clut­ter-free and easy to im­ple­ment. Large coun­tries such as Cana­da, as well as small­er coun­tries such as Bar­ba­dos, have demon­strat­ed the ef­fec­tive in­ter­play of sound leg­is­la­tion, sup­port­ed by ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion and stake­hold­er buy-in. This cre­ates an eco-sys­tem that al­lows the fun­da­men­tal goal of bev­er­age con­tain­er waste min­imi­sa­tion to be at­tained.

What ex­act­ly is “closed-loop re­cy­cling”? This term was cre­at­ed to de­scribe a sys­tem in which bev­er­age con­tain­ers, or any oth­er form of re­cy­clable prod­ucts, move from, and back to, their orig­i­nal point of man­u­fac­ture and are re­cy­cled. The de­posit-re­fund mech­a­nism leg­isla­tive­ly man­dates the man­u­fac­tur­er of the bev­er­age con­tain­er to add on a de­posit (the amount of which is stip­u­lat­ed by the leg­is­la­tion) to the price of the fi­nal prod­uct that's con­tained in it. This de­posit is then paid, all to­geth­er, by the re­tail­ers that pur­chase the prod­ucts from the man­u­fac­tur­er.

When the re­tail­ers sell the prod­ucts in­di­vid­u­al­ly to con­sumers, they would “re­lay” or pass on the de­posit to the con­sumers. The quan­tum of such de­posits, ide­al­ly, should be stat­ed clear­ly on the la­bel of each bev­er­age con­tain­er as a sep­a­rate charge, for full dis­clo­sure to re­tail­ers and con­sumers. In par­tic­u­lar, it would prove use­ful to con­sumers as a re­minder that they can ac­cess a re­fund, once the con­tain­er is re­turned ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. In ad­di­tion, strong and ef­fec­tive con­sumer aware­ness cam­paigns re­gard­ing the de­posit-re­fund would fur­ther aid in the de­sired goal of 100 per cent re­turn of bev­er­age con­tain­ers by con­sumers.

The even­tu­al re­turn of the emp­ty bev­er­age con­tain­er by the con­sumer, ini­ti­ates the process of re­funds be­ing is­sued, es­sen­tial­ly a re­ver­sal of the de­posit mech­a­nism. Con­sumers would re­turn the con­tain­ers to col­lec­tion points and re­ceive a re­fund of their de­posit. This pay­ment fur­ther sub­stan­ti­ates the need for clear iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the de­posit to be paid on each con­tain­er la­bel (as men­tioned above).

'Clos­ing of the loop'

It fol­lows that the re­tail­er would re­turn the emp­ty bev­er­age con­tain­ers to the man­u­fac­tur­er and be re­fund­ed the to­tal de­posits at­trib­ut­able, based on the num­ber of con­tain­ers that have been re­turned. In some in­stances, the con­tain­er man­u­fac­tur­er may re­ceive them di­rect­ly from the re­tail­er and is­sue the to­tal re­fund; in oth­er in­stances, a “col­lec­tor” may col­lect the con­tain­ers, pay the re­funds to the re­tail­ers, and trans­port them to the man­u­fac­tur­ers, who would re­ceive the re­funds plus a “mark-up” for the ser­vice pro­vid­ed. Once the man­u­fac­tur­er has re­ceived their orig­i­nal­ly man­u­fac­tured con­tain­ers, this ef­fec­tive­ly brings to an end the de­posit-re­fund mech­a­nism. The “clos­ing of the loop” takes place when the con­tain­ers are re­cy­cled or re-used, an ide­al sce­nario that ben­e­fits every­one through waste re­duc­tion and cost min­imi­sa­tion.

This de­scrip­tion of a de­posit-re­fund sys­tem is prac­ti­cal, yet some­what sim­plis­tic. The un­ex­plained com­plex­i­ty de­rives from the fact that the point of ori­gin of a bev­er­age con­tain­er is not al­ways easy to as­cer­tain, as the man­u­fac­tur­ers of the prod­uct and the bev­er­ages are not al­ways one and the same. Some ex­am­ples of di­ver­gence would be lo­cal or for­eign con­tain­er man­u­fac­tur­ers who sell them to the man­u­fac­tur­ers of the prod­ucts. In such cas­es, the con­tain­er man­u­fac­tur­er would hold fi­nal li­a­bil­i­ty for pay­ment of the re­funds. In oth­er in­stances, the fin­ished prod­uct is im­port­ed in­to the coun­try but is still gov­erned by the lo­cal leg­is­la­tion and de­posit-re­fund sys­tem. This may then bring a coun­try's Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion in­to play at the point of im­por­ta­tion, to en­sure that the de­posits are paid for all in­com­ing prod­ucts cov­ered by the law.

An­oth­er point of pos­si­ble un­cer­tain­ty is the re­turn of bev­er­age con­tain­ers with­out la­bels. This makes it dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine which com­pa­ny orig­i­nal­ly man­u­fac­tured the con­tain­er and are there­fore li­able to pay the re­fund (un­less there is a unique iden­ti­fi­er en­graved in­to the ac­tu­al con­tain­er it­self). This may be over­come by con­sumers be­ing di­rect­ed, ei­ther by law or by the clear­ly stat­ed pol­i­cy of re­tail­ers, that con­tain­ers would on­ly be re­ceived for a re­fund if they are re­turned in their orig­i­nal con­di­tion (with the la­bel in­tact).

There are, po­ten­tial­ly, oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions that can arise along the var­i­ous el­e­ments of the de­posit-re­fund sys­tem. For T&T, it is im­per­a­tive that leg­is­la­tion is very well craft­ed, with all stake­hold­ers be­ing in­volved in the con­sul­ta­tive process that in­forms it. Be­fore leg­is­la­tion is im­ple­ment­ed in our coun­try, there must al­so be an ef­fec­tive plan to deal with ex­ist­ing emp­ty bev­er­age con­tain­ers that are in the land­fills, so as to pre­vent op­por­tunis­tic “con­sumers” from pre­sent­ing them for an un­de­serv­ing re­fund. This would be a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment min­istry or agency that has ju­ris­dic­tion over the de­posit-re­fund sys­tem.

Most im­por­tant­ly, its worth re­it­er­a­tion that all stake­hold­ers in­volved have a de­gree of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in en­sur­ing that they do what is re­quired of them by law, if or when it comes in­to ef­fect. Fail­ure to do so should be puni­tive enough to im­pel the guilty par­ty to take cor­rec­tive ac­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, con­sumer knowl­edge, un­der­stand­ing, and aware­ness is key to bev­er­age con­tain­ers be­ing re­turned in an ap­pro­pri­ate form; with­out this, the law will not have the ca­pac­i­ty to ful­fil its in­tend­ed pur­pose.