Jooneed Bhooally speaks with nostalgia of the ?good old days? when the bottle-business was, as he puts it, ?at its best?. His father, he proudly says, brought up 24 children on the profits from this trade, which consists in buying empty bottles and reselling them. Jooneed took over on his father?s death in 1979. His brothers were also bottle merchants, buying two bottles for one rupee and selling them for twice the price. He remembers how he used to make between 200 and 300 rupees a day, considered as a very good income at that time. ?We had to look for orders, collect the bottles, wash them and sell them back to factories.?

There was also a high demand for little flasks, which hospitals and pharmacies used to sell medicine. ?Sometimes pharmacists would contact me and I simply could not meet the demand.? As if in testimony to how profitable his job used to be, he proudly says that he married his 2 daughters on the profits from bottle selling.

But when plastic came into use, the business slowly started to falter, until most of his brothers gave it up. Jooneed is the only one who occasionally buys bottles from people in his village of Saint-Pierre and sells them back to shops. ?Even the cost of hiring a lorry to go to the factory would not be profitable for us now. Before it cost 10 to 15 rupees to go to Port-Louis??

In addition to the increase in costs, only spirits are now sold in glass bottles so the supply is limited. He says that, with plastic, people do not have the bother of giving back bottles and, although it causes more pollution, they find it more practical. He adds, with a sad little smile, that ?the taste of drinks in glass bottles was different, much better...?