agesilaus wrote:
Chum lee wrote:
MEX: I'm a fan of the way some containers are used in Mexico. For example, Corona beer bottles are not only recyclable, they are REUSABLE and REFILLABLE. If not broken/chipped/cracked they can and are refilled hundreds of times. IMO that's the cheapest and most environmentally friendly way . . . long term. This single use mentality is killing us, but, it IS convenient.
When I was a kid, I remember my mom would buy some products based on the container they came in because she could/would clean it, then reuse it, without having to BUY something new.
Chum lee
Could it possibly be the cost of labor in Mexico vs what we pay in the US. What do they actually pay unskilled workers down there? $0.25/hour, $0.50? vs a minimum of $12 an hour up here, $8 minimum wage plus $4 in fringe benefits and possibly $20/hour where the socialists have run the minimum wage up to $15. Plus all other business costs are much lower down there with the exception of La Mordida
So labor costs 24 to 80 times as much might make paying someone to pick up and wash bottles a trifle more expensive don't you think? Corona might have a problem seeing a bottle of beer at $10/bottle.
Corona Beer costs +-$1.00 a bottle in the U.S. In Mexico, it's much cheaper because they reuse the bottles.
The cost of labor is relative. The people buying the product, in my example Corona Beer, ARE the low paid labor that uses the product and somehow, Mexico in this case, gets it to work. When considering ALL the costs of a product, generally reusing the product hundreds of times is cheaper than buying a new one each time. It doesn't work for everything, but in this case, it does, otherwise it wouldn't be happening, as it has in Mexico for over 50 years. If you think something won't/can't work, YOU'RE RIGHT, it won't. In the U.S., the powers to be DON'T want it to work. So far, THEY make more money that way. As long as the American public can afford to pay the bill, it will.
Chum lee
