Consider an empty bottle or can, one of the hundreds of billions of beverage containers that are discarded worldwide every year. Empty containers have been at the center of intense political controversies, technological innovation processes, and the modern environmental movement. Making a Green Machine examines the development of the Scandinavian beverage container deposit-refund system, which has the highest return rates in the world, from 1970 to present. Finn Arne Jørgensen investigates the challenges the system faced when exported internationally and explores the critical role of technological infrastructures and consumer convenience in modern recycling. His comparative framework charts the complex network of business and political actors involved in the development of the reverse vending machine (RVM) and bottle deposit legislation to better understand the different historical trajectories empty beverage containers have taken across markets, including the U.S. The RVM has served as more than a hole in the wall--it began simply as a tool for grocers who had to handle empty refillable glass bottles, but has become a green machine to redeem the empty beverage container, helping both business and consumers participate in environmental actions.
Notes
Description based upon print version of record.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Language note
English
Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Figures
Preface
Chapter 1. Bottles, Cans, and Everyday Environmentalism
Chapter 2. The Problem of Bottles
Chapter 3. Creating Bottle Infrastructures
Chapter 4. A World of Bottles
Chapter 5. Can Cultures
Chapter 6. Greening the RVM
Chapter 7. Making Disposables Environmentally Friendly
Chapter 8. Message in a Bottle
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
ISBN
1-283-86431-2
0-8135-5087-4
OCLC
775872922
Doi
10.36019/9780813550879
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