Sales of disposable beverage containers have grown dramatically—up by 22 percent from 2000-2010—with per capita consumption soaring by eight percent over the same period.
Yet even as beverage sales increased, the rate at which we recycled the empty containers declined, according to “Bottled Up,” a report by the Container Recycling Institute.
The report suggests numerous reasons for the decline in beverage container recycling, among them the surge in bottled water sales (up more than 400 percent since 2000) and the unwillingness of state legislatures to enact effective recycling policies, especially new or expanded container deposit laws.
If the 153 billion containers wasted in 2010 had been diverted back to the manufacturing stream, the U.S. would have eliminated the release of 11.6 million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—that’s roughly one-fifth of total GHG represented by America’s municipal solid waste, and equivalent to taking nearly 2.3 million cars off the road.