Friendly Plastic Pop Can Nearly Ready for Market

drfishy writes "BevNET has the story of Toledo, OH based Owens-Illinois and their new pop can. The can is made of a "fancy" new clear plastic with a traditional aluminum top and should be in stores sometime this year. Consumers are supposed to like it because of the "cool" factor, manufacturers will like it because they can use the same equipment to fill and package them, beverage companies like it because consumers and manufacturers will, and advertising agencies love it because they can get rich making all new commercials to convince people it really is cool. Seriously though, I like the idea, enough to submit a story about it anyway..."

Comments

How recyclable is it?

[DaveOnNet]

How do the recycling folks like it? What's the number in the little triangle? I suppose they'll have to separate the top from the body to recycle it at all. Gotta love that!

Re:How recyclable is it?

[Jahf]

However, your comment "I would rather the manufacturer pay for it than my local co-op recycler" is a bit naieve.

Not in the least. I know I am going to be the one paying in the end no matter who bears the costs.

The issue here is that my co-op recycler operates as a non-profit. They cover recycling costs with garbage [non-recyclable] fees ($2/can). I would rather the for-profit manufacturer deal with extra costs of bottling/canning than trickling it down to the local level.

In fact, I'm purposefully paying -more- this way than if my recycler bore the brunt of the additional recycling cost (at least in the short term) since I pay nothing to drop off the recyclables.

I'm willing to pay the little bit extra in the way of an aluminum fee to make sure I contribute that little bit less to the cost of recycling, thereby making recycling a more economical alternative and thereby making it more common.

More garbage, less recycling

[MrEfficient]

Right now aluminum cans are recycled by many people because they bring a decent price and there are many places they can be sold. But plastic? As far as I know, there's no money to be made by an individual in recycling plastic and if there is, I doubt it's as much as aluminum.

Re:Not at all new...

[DonFinch]

Packaging by itself isn't enough to make a successful product.

Two words: Brittney Spears

Re:A New Revenue Source

[Blkdeath]

It looks like Slashdot has discovered a new source of income: turning press releases into headlines. It's far from original, but it works -- for a while, anyway.

Newsflash for you, and for every other maroon who parrots the "Slashdot is selling out" / "Slashdot should charge advertising fees" lines; This is a site dedicated to news for nerds. Nerds like gadgets. They like cool toys, fast processors, high speed RAM, water cooling to make the best out of their new high speed toys, mods to make their toys look good, caffeinated products, sugary foods - how else is a news site supposed to tell people about these products without, oh, mentioning them by name? Are you going to clamour that they should charge AMD for announcing the Athlon 64 release to the market? Or they they should invoice Intel for announcing the Pentium 4 4.0GHz?

It's news. Get over it. If you don't like it, go somewhere else and be uninformed. Stick to your Celeron 400MHz and thinnet LAN and quit bitching. It's old, and nobody cares.