Hygienic, affordable and environmentally friendly water packaging container

Osei-Bonsu, P.

2013

English

Disposable plastic drink containers are a major global environmental problem. In many countries, Coca-Cola and other drinks are packaged in non-disposable glass bottles. Consumers of these drinks return the bottles to the retailers, which are cleaned at the production factory and reused to package drinks. This method of packaging does not pollute the environment. However it could endanger consumers’ health because even the most effective cleaning machine may not always eliminate germs and other contaminants from all cleaned bottles. This danger cannot be over-emphasized in countries where numerous companies produce drinks such as water and standard enforcement agencies are not well resourced to effectively monitor them. Thus disposable containers are hygienic but not friendly to the environment and non-disposable containers are environmentally friendly but not so hygienic. This paper describes a novel container for packaging water which is both hygienic and environmentally friendly. The idea proposes packaging water in a disposable polyethylene bag which is tightly attached to a non-disposable stand. Because the stand is not disposable, a consumer must return the empty container (empty bag attached to the stand) to the seller after drinking the water. Subsequently, the empty bags (wastes) are removed at the water factory and replaced with new bags for repackaging of water. In this way the wastes are economically accumulated in a clean and homogeneous state for recycling. The innovation provides consumers the health benefits of drinking in a disposable container and curbs littering.

Osei-Bonsu, P. (2013), “Hygienic, affordable and environmentally friendly water packaging container”, International Journal of Development and Sustainability, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 1194-1202.