Supporter of the week: Ron Cook - inventor of the bottle bank?

Hannah Booth

22 February 2012

To celebrate Friends of the Earth's 40th anniversary, I've been talking to some of the supporters who've made it possible. Ron Cook (right) is a retired Environmental Manager who's encouraging councils to recycle our glass.

"You could say I started bottle banks. Back in the 70s, I was marketing manager for United Glass, the largest producer of glass bottles in the UK. We were forecasting great things.

"Then Friends of the Earth activists dumped empty bottles on Schweppes' doorstep in London and suddenly glass became a dirty word.

"The mood at the time quickly became anti-waste, and we didn't like being seen as wasteful. I'd heard of a Swiss experiment involving skips on high streets for people to drop in their empty bottles.

"But I didn't think councils would like ordinary skips out on the streets - they're ugly things. And we had to collect coloured glass separately.

"So we came up with a modified skip design, and brainstormed for a name.

It took a year to persuade just four councils to trial these bottle banks.

"I'm still frustrated by the fact that most glass collected today is used in landfill, or exported. I've been campaigning to change that.

"I've written to my MP, Zac Goldsmith, to newspapers, companies and charities. It's criminal that we could save so much energy by recycling them in this country.

"Just using more green bottles would help. People wouldn't care less if they drank Guinness from a green bottle rather than a brown one."

Check out Friends of the Earth's recent work on waste. Next week: Baroness Bryony Worthington. To see all the supporters I interviewed, visit our 40th anniversary gallery.

Hannah Booth also writes Lives Less Ordinary

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