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The purpose of this research is to identify the current reverse logistics practices adopted by soft drink companies and the prominent factors which can decide the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire process of the reverse logistics channel. The paper employs Pareto analysis and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method on data collected from logistics professionals involved in the software industry in Sri Lanka using two questionnaires. As the prominent factors, transportation, accidents, packaging, a method of storage, the cleaning process and sorting process was identified and the first four prominent factors have a higher influence on both measures of efficiency and effectiveness. They can also identify the external factors which can emerge inefficiencies due to outsourced dealers. Lack of previous literature on the subject matter and the difficulty to access the filed data were the main limitations of this study. The identified factors will help to identify the correct root causes for the inefficiencies of the current reverse logistics practices and concentrating on these factors will give an opportunity for the soft drink industry players to successfully implement a sustainable green supply chain which reduces waste at each stage of its forwards and reverse logistics process. Transportation, Accidents, Packaging, and Storage have been previously identified as considerations in reverse logistics processes and the current study showed that they have a higher impact on both efficiency and effectiveness on reverse logistics and these factors should be given specific consideration while in the operations.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the costs of implementation of the deposit‐refund system for packaging of beverage drinks in Latvia, and to evaluate the economic feasibility of the system in the period up to 2020.

The economic assessment is based on the projections of the future consumption of beverage drinks, and of the amount of deposit packaging respectively. Investment, collection, transportation, maintenance and other system operating costs are considered. An evaluation is made to compare the producers’ costs in the existing curbside collection system and in deposit‐refund system.

The costs of the deposit‐refund system depend on the amount of packaging placed on the market. The amount of deposit packaging, in its turn, depends on the consumption of beverage drinks affected by GDP. The implementation of the deposit‐refund system would cause an increase in the beverage drink packaging costs, as producers would need to pay the service charge to cover the costs of the system operator. The assumed return rates of deposit packaging exceed the existing recovery rates. Thus, compared to the curbside collection system the recovery of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), glass and aluminium has increased, whereas the amount of landfilled waste has decreased.

For several years there have been on‐going discussions on implementation of the packaging deposit‐refund system in Latvia. However, there are no academic studies available, applicable to evaluate the economic aspects of the system implementation. The paper presents the methodology for assessing the investment, collection, maintenance and other costs, as well as providing the results of estimated costs of the packaging deposit‐refund system in Latvia in the period up to 2020.

There has been no lack of criticism in the literature of accounting and logistics over the attention given, or not given, to distribution costs. Dobson stated flatly: “Distribution is neglected by cost accountants”. Only slightly less deprecating were Lambert and Armitage, who concluded that, for years, “control over distribution costs has been at best haphazard and, at worst, nonexistent”.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ wine preferences, recycling attitudes and behaviors and socio-demographic data in an effort to build market segment profiles of those willing to transport wine bottles back to winery tasting rooms to be recycled, interest in standard-weight glass-alternative packaging and, various cork-alternative bottle closures.

A two-stage online survey was administered to 714 wine consumers residing in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA during two periods in March 2016. Exhaustive chi-square automatic interaction detector (ECHAID) decision tree predictive analysis was used to identify the market segments.

A majority of survey participants were willing to bring empty wine bottles to a winery for recycling (85 percent). Collectively, 77 percent of participants were members of just three of the eight segments developed using a decision tree predictive algorithm, with 90 percent of participants in these segments willing to bring empty wine bottles to a winery tasting room to be recycled. Two segments were comprised of Millennials and Generation X, and the third of Baby Boomers, two having a moderate to extreme interest in natural cork used to seal wine bottles, and similar.

An ECHAID classification tree method was used to develop eight consumer segments. Identifying characteristics that describe consumers likely to return empty wine bottles to a winery benefits recycling efforts and could possibly encourage additional sales.

Does the good old fashioned milk bottle have a serious rival in the disposable, one way carton? Dilys Wells examines the points in favour and some of the drawbacks of each type of milk container Throughout England and Wales 92 homes out of every 100 have milk delivered to their doorsteps. In all over three million pints of milk are set down on fifteen million doorsteps by over forty thousand milkmen daily. Countries including Holland, Belgium, Denmark, America and Canada also used to have a doorstep delivery of milk but this was stopped when home delivery became unprofitable. Milk consumption decreased in every one of these countries when deliveries stopped

That there has been a flood of this type of case in recent years—a flood which shows no signs of abating —must be manifest to all. In a paper “Food Sampling: Changing Trends” presented to a Sessional Meeting of the Royal Society of Health last March, Dr. H. Amphlett Williams, public analyst, tabulated a comparison of prosecutions in England and Wales reported in this Journal for five years before the War (1936–40) with five years since (1956–60). This showed that in the first period, “foreign body” cases were non‐existent compared with 37 per cent of total cases reported in the second period. It also showed that cases concerned with adulteration were 39 per cent of the total and milks, in particular, 41 per cent compared with 12 and 16 per cent respectively for the post‐war period.

At the Royal Society of Health annual conference, no less a person than the editor of the B.M.A.'s “Family Doctor” publications, speaking of the failure of the anti‐smoking campaign, said we “had to accept that health education did not work”; viewing the difficulties in food hygiene, there are many enthusiasts in public health who must be thinking the same thing. Dr Trevor Weston said people read and believed what the health educationists propounded, but this did not make them change their behaviour. In the early days of its conception, too much was undoubtedly expected from health education. It was one of those plans and schemes, part of the bright, new world which emerged in the heady period which followed the carnage of the Great War; perhaps one form of expressing relief that at long last it was all over. It was a time for rebuilding—housing, nutritional and living standards; as the politicians of the day were saying, you cannot build democracy—hadn't the world just been made “safe for democracy?”—on an empty belly and life in a hovel. People knew little or nothing about health or how to safeguard it; health education seemed right and proper at this time. There were few such conceptions in France which had suffered appalling losses; the poilu who had survived wanted only to return to his fields and womenfolk, satisfied that Marianne would take revenge and exact massive retribution from the Boche!

In the matter of food purity and control Hospital Catering Services have been outside the law, a privileged position where the general law of food and drugs have never applied and the modern regulatory control in food hygiene has similarly not applied. In the eyes of the general public hospital catering standards have always been high above the general run of food preparation. As the NHS continued, complaints began gradually to seep out of the closed community, of dirt in the kitchens and prevalent hygiene malpractices. The general standard for most hospitals remained high but there were no means of dealing with the small minority of complaints which disgusted patients and non‐cater‐ing staff, such as insect and rodent infestations, and an increase in the frequency of food poisoning outbreaks.

One of the most serious problems facing the country today is maintaining dietary standards, especially in the vulnerable groups, in the face of rising food prices. If it were food prices alone, household budgetry could cope, but much as rising food prices take from the housewife's purse, rates, fuel, travel and the like seem to take more; for food, it is normally pence, but for the others, it is pounds! The Price Commission is often accused of being a watch‐dog which barks but rarely if ever bites and when it attempts to do this, like as not, Union power prevents any help to the housewife. There would be far less grumbling and complaining by consumers if they could see value for their money; they only see themselves constantly overcharged and, in fact, cheated all along the line. In past issues, BFJ has commented on the price vagaries in the greengrocery trade, especially the prices of fresh fruit and vegetables. Living in a part of the country given over to fruit farming and field vegetable crops, it is impossible to remain unaware of what goes on in this sector of the food trade. Unprecedented prosperity among the growers; and where fruit‐farming is combined with field crops, potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and leafy brassicas, many of the more simple growers find the sums involved frightening. The wholesalers and middle‐men are something of unknown entities, but the prices in the shops are there for all to see. The findings of an investigation by the Commission into the trade, the profit margins between wholesale prices and greengrocers' selling prices, published in February last, were therefore not altogether surprising. The survey into prices and profits covered five basic vegetables and was ordered by the present Prices Secretary the previous November. Prices for September to November were monitored for the vegetables—cabbages, brussels sprouts, cauliflowers, carrots, turnips and swedes, the last priced together. Potatoes were already being monitored.