Glass Works

Spring 1998 | Table of Contents

Showing Success ­ Step Four in the PDCA Cycle

In this issue, Glass Works is pleased to share with you a number of success stories. These focus on Canadian stakeholders, who in their own way, have added to the success of Canada exceeding the Year 2000 NAPP milestone of 50% diversion of packaging from landfill.

Brewers Association of Canada (BAC) --
"A Clean Environment as an Essential Ingredient"

These twenty-seven companies account for over 98% of domestic beer consumed by Canada's 10 million beer connoisseurs.

Brewers' environmental performance can be summarized by six practices:

  • Closing the loop ensures the beer container moves from brewer to consumer and back to the brewer 4 times a year on average.
  • Returnable/reusable bottles make up almost 70% of beer packaging, each bottle making the tour around the system up to 15 times in its life before being returned for recycling.
  • Secondary Packaging Materials such as the tear-away ring, old corrugated cardboard and bottle caps each have appropriately designed diversion plans.
  • Operations, based on best available technology, utilize heat reclamation and eco-efficiency. Spent grains and waste yeast are sold to farmers for animal feed.
  • Product Stewardship focused the Brewers' efforts to meet NaPP.
  • Return Rates indicate the ultimate success of the Brewers as shown in the chart below.

Return rates on industry glass and
aluminum containers by province -- 1996

Province Glass Aluminum
NFLD 99.0% n.a
P.E.I 98.0% n.a
NS 98.0% 76.7%
NB *129.0% 72.0%
QUE 97.0% 75.0%
ONT 99.1% 84.07%
MAN 97.6% 73.7%
SASK 92.8% n.a
ALTA *102.7% 92.3%
B.C 91.6% 93.8%
National Average 99.0% 85.2%

*These high numbers are attributed to interprovincial shipments.
SOURCE: BAC

The Brewers Association of Canada is a national trade association representing brewing companies operating in Canada.

Banff Brewery Corp

Bow Valley Brewing Company Ltd., The

Brasserie Brasal Brewery Inc.

Brasserie Le Cheval Blanc

Brick Brewing Co. Limited

Chilkoot Brewing Co. Ltd.

Fort Garry Brewing Co. Ltd.

Granville Island Brewing Company

Great Western Brewing Company Limited

Hart Brewing Company Ltd., The

La Brasserie McAuslan Brewing Inc.

Labatt Breweries of Canada

Lakeport Brewing Corporation

Les Brasseurs GMT Inc.

Les Brasseurs du Nord Inc.

Molson Breweries

Moosehead Breweries Limited

Nelson Brewing Company Limited

Niagara Falls Brewing Co.

Northern Breweries Limited

Pacific Western Brewing Company

Sleeman Brewing & Malting Co. Ltd.

Tree Brewing Company Ltd.

Unibroue Inc.

Upper Canada Brewing Company

Vancouver Island Brewing Co

Whistler Brewing Company Ltd.

Web site: www.brewers.ca

Moosehead Breweries Limited, Saint John, NB

The environment has had a strong presence in Moosehead's history and is entrenched in their core mission statement. Moosehead won a 1995 award from the Packaging Association of Canada, along with Consumers Glass, for having a high recycled content in its bottles. Moosehead's bottles, made by Consumers Glass, have maintained a 65% recycled content for the last five years.

Richard Osepchook, Director of Purchasing for Moosehead, indicated that the company's environmental ethic is reflective of the provincial one, "the real credit goes to every one of the over 640,000 people who live in New Brunswick; everyone pulls together. We are all very outdoors oriented." Richard stated that it is common to find people walking through the woods armed with bags to collect litter. In fact there is healthy competition to see who can take more recovered containers back to one of the 97 redemption centres in New Brunswick.

Moosehead works cooperatively with the Department of the Environment to try to find ways to make the redemption centres more cost effective.

When asked how could the system be improved, Richard made a few suggestions:

In this issue:

Glass Works is a publication of Consumers Glass

Copyright © 1998 Glass Works