Wasted Bottles

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28805, 28 January 1959, Page 10

Wasted Bottles

The Price Tribunal did not distinguish itself in its task of adjusting liquor prices after the alterations in beer duty made by the Budget. Its reputation is not improved by the disclosure that a Price Tribunal order , for the one-pint bottle of export-strength beer includes the price of the bottle, Which is not returnable. This means that consumers pay for a bottle which is wasted after it is emptied. For the quart bottle, consumers receive an allowance when the bottle is returned. The Price Tribunal could well have protected consumers by separating the price of the bottle from the price of the “ complete retail package ” of one-pint bottles of beer. The breweries in New Zealand betaine interested in putting a one-pint bottle of exportstrength beer on the market when imports of this type of beer were prevented by import

restrictions. Several brands of export-strength beer had demonstrated the popularity of this beer in one-pint' containers. When imports were restricted

it was obviously good business for breweries in New Zealand to try to fill a demand that the imported beers had created, and they appear to be doing so with some success. The odd position about the bottles arose apparently because the New Zealand beer was to replace the imported beer “in every “respect”. Thus, because imported bottles were not collected for re-use, provision was not made for collecting locally-made bottles. It would be impracticable to collect imported bottles and return them to their sources overseas. But the locally-made bottle is quite a different proposition, as experience with the quart-size bottle clearly shows. The Price Tribunal should have insisted that the return value of onepint bottles was laid down when it fixed the price. By failing to do so, it permitted an injustice to consumers, encouraged Waste, and did no-one good except manufacturers of beer bottles. The Price Tribunal does not exist to do any of these things.