Stop Plastic Bottle Waste
According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), Americans throw away about 200 billion beverage containers, including plastic bottles and aluminum cans, each year. Beverage containers make up about 15 percent of all packaging waste in the US, and in 2000, only 31 percent were recycled, according to the CRI. S sales of bottled water continue to rise, beverage container waste is only expected to increase.
The CRI has long been pressuring beverage companies to stop the waste. IN 2002, Pepsi responded to the CRI campaign by stating that it would begin by using ten percent recycled content in its bottles, which Coca Cola was already doing. Since then, Coke has promised to up that recycled content to 25 percent in the US – Coca Cola already used bottles with 25 percent recycled PET in other countries. Neither company has since come through on their promise – citing problems in the availability and quality of recycled PET.
Using recycled content in beverage bottles doesn’t only reduce waste – it also uses less energy, which is better for the environment and the climate. Making an aluminum bottle from recycled aluminum requires 95 percent less energy than producing one from virgin materials. Beverage companies could have saved the equivalent of almost 1.6 million barrels of crude oil in 2004 by using just ten percent recycled PET in their plastic bottles, says the CRI.
But even if companies started using more recycled content, current recycling rates mean that two thirds of beverage cans and bottles are still being land filled or incinerated. But there is a proven way to bring recycling rates up – by adding a deposit to beverages.
Currently, 11 states have these “bottle bills” on the books, adding a five or ten-cent deposit is returned to the consumer when they bring container back to the store for recycling. States with a ten-cent bottle deposit have seen return rates as high as 97 percent.
“This isn’t a problem that has us sitting around scratching our heads and trying to find a solution,” says Barbara McLaughlin of the CRI. “We know that these bottle bills work; we just have to get them on the books around the country.”
But getting bottle bills on the books has proven difficult, as the beverage industry has lobbied hard against them, claiming that such bills would raise costs for manufacturers.
To add your voice to the CRI’s campaign to encourage beverage companies to increase recycled content in containers and to persuade lawmakers to support bottle bills, contact the CRI at www.container-recycling.org. For more information about the adverse health effects of plastics, see our Real Money article at www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/plastics.cfm.
You can do your part to curb plastic waste by avoiding buying products like bottled water in the first place. The plastic water bottles Americans use and throw away in one year use up more than 47 million gallons of oil to produce, and the privatization of water is becoming more problematic as communities around the world suffer from water shortages. To find out how to choose a good water filter that can purify your tap water and help you avoid environmentally damaging bottled water, see our Real Money article at www.coopamerica.org/go/waterfilters.   Infinite Health Resources does not at any point, for any circumstances suggest that you do not follow or stop medical advice of your physician. We do not advocate any drugs that has not been prescribed by your physician, nor suggest that we are medical doctors nor are we giving medical advice. Infinite Health Resources is here purely as a resource. |
