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What is the
Zero Beverage Container Waste Campaign?

The campaign for “Zero Beverage Container Waste” was inspired by the international Zero Waste movement. Since the mid-1990’s, activists in many parts of the world have been working to achieve a vision of local, regional, and global economies that will one day generate no “waste” at all. In recent years businesses, educational institutions and local governments have adopted zero waste goals and policies that are intended to lead to zero waste. You can learn more about groups involved in the Zero Waste movement by visiting the links section.

It may or may not be realistic to think that we can one day eliminate beverage container waste entirely, but we know that it is possible to get very close to “zero” beverage container waste. Michigan, for example, recycles 95% of its beer and soft drink cans and bottles, because of the mandatory 10-cent refundable deposit on those containers. If Congress were to pass a national container deposit law with a 25-cent deposit, we could come very close to 100% recycling or reuse of beverage containers within a year or two. But under the current political landscape, the  pursuit of such a law is an uphill battle.

In the absence of such legislation, we are suggesting interim goals and a wide variety of measures to start on the road to achieving Zero Beverage Container Waste.  The first interim goal is to cut beverage container waste by 25% over 2004 levels by 2008. We are suggesting subsequent interim goals of 25% less beverage container waste every four years (2012, 2016 and 2020.) We are using 2004 as the baseline year since that is the most recent year with available industry data. That year, approximately 810,000 tons of aluminum cans, 1.5 million tons of PET plastic, 335,000 tons of HDPE plastic, and 7 million tons of glass bottles were wasted—for a total of about 9.5 million tons.

If beverage consumption follows the growth trend of the last 5 years, and if recycling rates continue to hover around 35%, the amount of beverage container waste will continue to rise, surpassing 9.7 million tons in 2006, and 10 million tons by 2008. On the other hand, if we can cut beverage container waste 25% by 2008, container waste will drop to 7.1 million tons. Cutting container waste to 50% of the baseline year by 2012 will get us to 4.7 million tons. Continuing this reduction for another 8 years will get us to Zero Beverage Container Waste, or “darn close.” Specific years and wasting goals are in the table below.

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What is the Zero Beverage Container Waste campaign? How can we achieve Zero Beverage Container Waste? Join the Zero Beverage Container Waste campaign General Zero Waste links