The Ink is the Life
(via Gizmodo)
This reminds me of an old essay of mine, Legends of long forgotten yoghurt jars. Imagine water being more expensive than oil — well, no wonder, what you in fact give your money for is the plastic bottle (which you promtly throw away, or at best - recycle (на български) ).
It happens again here, this time in reverse. There is this carrot juice, costing about 240 units per litre. It comes in a glass container with non-standard cap, which means you can’t reuse it, because the cap smells of carrots and bananas (yeah, it’s a carrot-banana juice, just like your Granny used to make it…). You also can’t return it to the store, as they just don’t take them. So, not only you get another junk package you have to throw/recycle, but this time it’s made of glass (i.e. more expensive), it requires more energy to transport and is recycled as anonymous glass, which means it passes an unnecessary cycle of melting/recasting which again raises its cost and lowers the environmental gains from recycling.
Btw, Frost promtly gave the answer to the carrot theory of the wanderer — Poland has been declared a prime producer of carrots in the EU, and this is what stands behind these ad campaigns.
If you decide to go and make your own carrot juice (the right thing IMO), make sure to rinse them thoroughly, or you’re gonna drink hair bleach.