Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionIn the two decades after World War 2, the industry discovered the virtues of packagingdesigned for dumping. Returnable glass bottles, for example, were re-used up to 40times. Single use plastic, glass and can throwaways thus made for a massive expansionin the market and in profits. Emphasising that the industry should aim for “low cost,big volume, practicability, and expendability”, one farsighted participant told hiscolleagues at a plastics conference in 1956, “Your future lies in the garbage wagon!”[quoted in Rogers 2005: 121]. To make this future, they had to persuade people whowere used to mending and re-using things that throwing them away was the naturalthing to do. They had to make people think of themselves as consumers.Throwaways also enabled market concentration and centralisation. Returnable bottleswere generally tied to local markets within easy transport range of bottling plants wherethey were refilled. Throwaways thus became a weapon in hands of large corporationsas they centralised production and used their financial clout to undercut and by-passlocal bottlers. In the two decades following the war, the number of soft-drink makersin the US fell from 5,200 to 1,600 while brand leaders Coke and Pepsi establisheddominance, and the number of brewers dropped from 400 to 100. A study for theUS Environmental Protection Agency confirmed that this trend to monopolisationwas “encouraged and permitted by the introduction of nonreturnable bottles” [Rogers2005: 137].Bottled water exemplifies the twin drives for expansion and the concentration of powerin the market – or rather, to make the market – and combines it with the agendafor privatisation. At the beginning of the 1970s, bottled water was largely confinedto Europe and tied to natural springs supposed to have health benefits. During the80s, the market expanded six-fold and then exploded in the second half of the 90s.This expansion drew in the big names such as Coke and Nestle as well as the majorcorporations pushing for the privatisation of public water supplies led by Suez andVivendi. The industry has promoted itself on public concerns around water pollutionand deteriorating public provision even where tap water is more rigorously regulatedthan bottled water. As with many soft drinks, the dispensable packaging is in factmore valuable than the contents and makes up the better part of the energy it takes tocommodify the water. Corporate Accountability International comments causticallythat this energy is equivalent to filling a quarter of the bottle with oil. 82 In 2001,82 At www.stopcorporateabuse.orgWasting the Nation - groundWork - 115 -