The world is straining under the damaging effects of human behaviour, yet we are quick to blame big business – Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike and the like. But the uncomfortable truth is that the responsibility lies with us.
We are the ones who cannot be bothered to carry a shopping bag to the market. We are the ones buying products in single-use plastic containers that clog our rivers, litter our beaches and scatter our roadsides. Corporations will not persist with reusable glass bottles if we, the consumers, continue to favour plastic.
Tanzania now stands at the same crossroads Britain faced in the 1960s, when both glass and plastic bottles were in circulation. At that time, Britons religiously returned their empty glass bottles, much as Tanzanians still do today. But Britain eventually abandoned reuse in favour of recycling – melting down bottles and remoulding them – believing it easier and cheaper than simply washing and reusing the originals.
Walk into any shop in Tanzania today and you will find soda sold in both glass and plastic. But the plastic is steadily gaining ground, and before long, reusable glass bottles could vanish altogether. Must we follow that same path?
Tanzania could instead choose a different direction. We could reject products packaged in plastic, forcing manufacturers to adapt. If consumers refused to buy sodas in plastic, companies would have no reason to produce them.
Better still, Tanzania could set a global example by championing standardisation. Imagine if Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other soft drink manufacturers adopted one universal soda bottle or if Serengeti Breweries and Tanzania Breweries used the same standard beer bottle. Extend this even further, across borders, and the process of reuse would be dramatically simplified.
History shows it can be done. France gave the world the standard metre. Britain gave the world the standard railway gauge. Why shouldn’t Tanzania give the world standard reusable bottles and jars?
It is telling that every beer bottle carries the words “Drink responsibly.” Yet when you look at the rubbish strewn across our countryside, much of it consists of plastic soda and water bottles – not beer bottles. Perhaps, in this respect, beer drinkers are setting the better example.
