Labatt Brewing Company Ltd. is a well known brewer and now a lesser known eco-friendly company trying to clean the shores of Buffalo New York.
Yearly, this company pays a full day of work to it’s employees to help reduce the footprint we leave all along the river. It’s called Volunteer time-off and it gathers as much volunteers and employees to pick the sometimes unusual trash around the area.
The company is belgian owned and its headquarters are established in Canada since 1847 by its founder John Kinder Labatt, now currently owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Although the american counterpart is now fully from its canadian brother. This subsidiary is now privately owned by North AMerican Breweries of Rochester, New York and has the world’s best selling canadian beer with a “clean refreshing taste with a distinct hop aroma, delicate fruit flavor and a slightly sweet aftertaste.”, claims the page. So it’s interesting to see that big companies try to put their hands in the mud and get dirty for a cause that’s actually quite noble and exemplar to the community.
“You think about beer. Beer is made of water, a lot of water, so if we can ever tie ourselves back to the natural resources, really think about reducing water usage, while making beer while also helping out the environment. So it’s a great cause.” That’s what the Vice President of Sales at North American Breweries, Doug Smith, said about the whole event and one would agree. It’s funny to think that a brewing company would be the one to partake, let alone to be the first one to incite in these type of things. It’s not a complaint! It’s good to see anyone to do good things for their society, although they weren’t alone in this. They teamed up with Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers to help out and even have a little fun along the way. “We’re waiting to get the results but so far the wackiest thing we’ve found is a tiara.”, this is what Doug hopkins, who is a Board Member of Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers, said about the project.
In a Darker note...
He also stated about the amount of needles washed up along the shore which is a grim reminder of things happening around that we just can’t avoid sometimes. On the brighter side, you can see children helping alongside with their concerned parents, which always a good side to see and contrasts the darker landscape of pollution, irresponsibility and carelessness. They are of course seeing a brighter side of the future they can shape and although people may always do something wrong there’s always some good people out there that don’t find anything wrong with picking up, on the contrary! It’s a joy to know you’re doing something better for your neighbourhood and that people can learn from that experience and from the example you’re giving to others.
You can see a note of optimism in Hopkins once he said. “We’re now connecting young people with the waterfront in the city. Even though we still have a legacy of the past, there is a lot that needs to be cleaned up, but people are getting connected again to the waterfront.”