Bill Coors credits the jumpstart of his environmental conscience with the meeting of two individuals in the 1950s. Beatrice Williard, who then ran the Thorne Ecological Institute in Boulder, CO showed Bill three pictures she had taken in the alpine tundra above the timberline. The first was of a discarded Coors can stuck in the ground. The second was the depression left in the ground after the can had been removed. The third showed the same depression still visible ten years after the first two pictures had been taken.

Secondly, he met David Brower, the Sierra Club’s first Executive Director, whom he had been invited to debate. He agreed with most of what David had to say and left the debate admiring the man greatly.

Surprisingly, Bill Coors is saying things these days that sound more aligned with the anti-corporate crowd than fellow industry executives. For example, he claims outright that we shouldn’t be using fossil fuels. In fact, in an attempt to ween his corporations off the stuff, he had a biodegradable, starch based polymer developed to replace the petroleum-based plastics they used, but he claims that an industry conspiracy foiled the project.

Perhaps his boldest assertion is that the corporate focus on the quarterly return is “an ill in our system.” And that “If I were the czar of American industry, you know the first thing I would do? I would make stock options illegal.” He dislikes the “myopic” view executives acquire when they focus on these short-term returns (as quoted in LOHAS Journal, V 2 N 1, Spring 2001).

Even though Bill Coors built his own steel can factory for Coors Brewing, he didn’t like using them for several reasons. For one thing, the sight of beer cans along the Colorado roadside disgusted him. What’s more, he was afraid that a lot of other people disliked this litter too. And if that was the case, the government might get involved and impose regulations. The Coors family was nothing if not aggressively hostile to outsiders, especially the government, telling them how to run their business.

Additionally, Bill Coors disliked the negative impact on the beer quality of the soldered seems on the steel cans. And finally, beer in steel cans was required to be pasteurized, and Bill dreamed of the day that Coors could quit this practice and return to the fresh “uncooked” taste on which they built their empire.

Bill set out on a mission to create a beverage can that could easily be collected by the company and recycled, and that would not impart the never flavors associated with the steel cans they were using. Five years and $10 million dollars later, Bill Coors' research and development bore fruit. In 1959, the Coors Brewing Company rolled out their new aluminum can and recycling program. No one thought that customers would bother to return their cans for recycling, but Coors' penny per can collection service worked.

Today, the recycled and recyclable aluminum beverage can is commonplace, and we owe it all to beer.

In fact, recycling efforts continue to be dominated by the brewing industry. Brewing behemoth, Anheuser-Busch, is also the world's largest recycler of used aluminum beverage containers. In 2003, they manufactured 1 billion aluminum cans. That same year, they collected and recycled a little more than 1 billion aluminum cans.

Bill Coors retired in 2003, after spending years reinventing the company's reputation for progressive issues. Coors is now unionized and is ranked among the 50 best places to work - for everyone - even gays and blacks. They also have a well developed workplace 'wellness' program. It's a shame that their once high brewing quality standards have been hijacked by marketers and the beers themselves have devolved into the very epitome of 'bland-and-fizzy.'