The Other Container Revolution: How Businesses Influenced Environmental Politics and Thus the Recycling of Beverage Containers
研究了1970至2002年丹麦罐装饮料禁令引发的“罐战”，揭示企业如何利用环境和经济论据影响政策，推动从重复使用转向回收的容器系统变革。
This paper demonstrates tensions between national environmental policies and international free trade rules and traces business reactions to environmentalism through a study of the Can War, a controversy over a Danish ban on beverage cans from 1970 to 2002. At its core was a conflict between Denmark and the European Economic Community (EEC, later the European Union, EU) over free trade versus environmental objectives. This study of the Can War demonstrates how environmental concerns were entangled with national and economic interests, but also how brewers, retailers, and packaging producers used environmental and economic arguments in pragmatic ways and adapted to changing political and economic environments. Thus, the paper adds to the literature on the formative years of environmental politics, with a focus on business interests and a conflict between a nation-state and the EEC in a period when environmental concerns gained political momentum yet remained contested in a system based on free trade. This study also adds to the literature on waste-handling by demonstrating how the Danish return system changed from one based on reuse to one based on recycling; it further shows how beverage cans went from banned to uncontested, everyday objects. Through a comparison with Sweden, the case shows how national businesses influenced the design of new deposit and return systems for single-use packaging, wherein refillable glass bottles became marginalized. Overall, the study offers an understanding of the intricate relationships between environmental policies, business interests, consumer habits, and competing container materials, with aluminum as the winner.