Americans waste (landfill, litter, and incinerate) about 425 beverage containers per capita per year--twice as many as we recycle.

Environmental impacts of this wasting include:

• Energy consumption equivalent to 36 million barrels of crude oil per year
• Annual generation of 4.5 million tons of greenhouse gases
• Emission of a host of toxics to the air and water
• Damage to wildlife habitat due to mining, drilling, and building hydroelectric dams
• Landfilling and littering of more than 135 beverage cans and bottles each year.

Energy Consumption

When beverage containers are wasted, they must be replaced with new bottles and cans made from virgin materials. Production using virgin (primary) materials is more energy-intensive than production using recycled (secondary) feedstock, and it generates more pollutants of all kinds: airborne emissions, toxic liquid effluents, and solid wastes from mining and industrial processing, for example.

The environmental effects of this “replacement production” are particularly pronounced for aluminum cans (See CRI's Trashed Cans report). Primary aluminum production entails strip mining bauxite ore, refining it into alumina using fuel oil and other chemical inputs, transporting it vast distances, and smelting it into aluminum ingot using large quantities of electricity. New hydroelectric dams are often built to produce electricity for aluminum smelters, damaging river ecosystems and displacing indigenous peoples in many regions of the world.

The manufacturing processes for PET and HDPE plastic bottles are not as environmentally egregious as aluminum can production, but they are still energy consumptive and polluting, relying on natural gas and petroleum derivatives. To read more about the effects of making plastics, click here.

Taken together, the energy used to replace the 134 billion beverage containers wasted in 2005 was equivalent to 50 million barrels of crude oil. This is enough to supply the total residential energy needs of about 2 million American households for a year.

Click here to see a table of energy impacts by material in 2005.

Greenhouse Gases

An estimated 11.6 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions were also produced in the process of replacing the 153 billion bottles and cans not recycled in 2010, as the table shows.

While the aluminum industry has come a long way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the smelting process itself, the worldwide quantity of aluminum-related greenhouse gases has continued to rise. This is due in large part to the greenhouse gas impacts of increased total aluminum demand, and thus increased electricity generation--from coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric dams.

Toxic Emissions

Toxics are also released into the soil and water when bauxite or is mined and processed for refining into alumina. For every ton of aluminum produced, about 5 tons of caustic red mud wastes are produced, along with a host of other pollutants , including NOx and SOx (contributors to acid rain and smog), toxic fluorides and volatile hydrocarbons, and other industrial effluents.

Litter

Beverage containers typically comprise 40% to 60% of roadside litter in non-deposit states. In a 1999 statewide study, the Solid Waste Coordinators of Kentucky found that beverage containers and closures made up 52% of roadside litter, as the below figure shows. The same study found that beverage container material made up 42% of litter in state waterways, and an average of 49% of litter at all sites. The Virginia Shenandoah Valley Audubon Society, a participant in the state’s Adopt-a-Highway program, carefully recorded the litter they picked up several times a year from 1990 to 1998. They found that beverage containers accounted for 69% of litter collected on their adopted highways over the 9-year period.

Beverage container litter can be dangerous to people and animals.

People stepping on broken glass beer bottles can sustain deep cuts. Soon after Massachusetts enacted its deposit law in 1983, doctors at Children’s Hospital in Boston found a 60% decrease in glass-related lacerations that required stitches. ^[1]

Livestock can be maimed or even killed by beverage container litter, either by stepping on broken cans and glass bottles, or by ingesting sharp pieces of containers that end up in their feed. This happens when a farm combine working along a roadside inadvertently “harvests” littered bottles and cans that have been tossed out of car windows.

Wildlife are also susceptible to broken glass injuries, and marine birds in particular are prone to mistake littered plastic bottle caps as food. Unable to digest or excrete them, the birds gradually starve to death.

Sources

1. Douglas M. Baker, MK; Sally E. Moore; and Paul H. Wise, MD, PhD, MPH. “The Impact of ‘Bottle Bill’ Legislation on the Incidence of Lacerations in Childhood,” American Journal of Public Health, October 1986.

Click on an organization name on the map below to visit their website.
Or, scroll down for an alphabetized list.

Worldwide Zero Waste Links

     Zero Waste Alliance
           Zero Waste International Alliance
                  Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
                           Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives
                                    Grassroots Recycling Network and their GreenYes! mailing list

List of Zero Waste Links

• ACT NOWaste (Canberra)
• California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA)
• Container Recycling Institute
• Eco-Cycle (Boulder, Colorado)
• Footprint Environmental Strategies (British Columbia)
• Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
• Grassroots Recycling Network and their GreenYes! mailing list
• Institute for Zero Waste in Africa (informational newsletter: PDF, 303KB)
• Recycling Advisory Group Scotland
• Southwest Network for Zero Waste
• Zero Waste Alliance
• Zero Waste International Alliance
• Zero Waste America
• Zero Waste Israel - Mailing List
• Zero Waste Kovalam
• Zero Waste New Zealand
• Zero Waste North (British Columbia)

Eliminating beverage container waste won’t be easy. Without concrete recycling goals and a plan for attaining them, beverage consumption is doomed to continue on its present course, a course that is not sustainable in the long term.

Cutting Beverage Container Waste:
from A lot to Zero

There are a wide variety of steps individuals, organizations and institutions can take to bring us closer to Zero Beverage Container Waste. We’ve taken a stab at A though H (and Z of course!); we hope you’ll pitch in with ideas covering I through Y!

Alternatives to packaged beverages. Daily consumption of packaged beverages has become the norm for the average American… (continued)

Bottled water alternatives. Bottled water consumption has grown more sharply than any other beverage type. Between 1976 and 1996, U.S. bottled water consumption increased 10-fold… (continued)

Curbside improvement. During the 1990s, curbside recycling in the United States mushroomed from about 2,000 programs serving only 15% of the population to 10,000 programs serving about half of the American population… (continued)

Deposit/Return systems place a small, fully refundable deposit (a nickel or a dime) on beverage bottles and cans… (continued)

Education: spread the word about container recycling and reuse… (continued)

Food-venue recycling. At least a third of all packaged beverage consumption takes place outside the home… (continued)

Goal-setting by the beverage industry. We call on the U.S. beverage and packaging industries to join us in adopting these incremental Zero Beverage Container Waste goals… (continued)

Help bring back refillables: Refillable glass beverage bottles have been phased out in the United States, with small exceptions… (continued)

Zero is the goal: If we continue on our current path, remaining content with modest recycling goals of 25% or 30% or even 50%, we will continue to waste energy and resources, pollute the air and water in other parts of the world where raw materials are extracted and processed, and foul our own communities. If we can envision and work towards a waste-free society, we will take a giant step towards a sustainable society. We must articulate this vision to our public and elected officials at the local, state and federal levels, to the corporations that manufacture and distribute the beverages we enjoy, to our friends, family, and neighbors. And each of us needs to live our vision of Zero Beverage Container Waste—every day, by reusing and recycling their beverage cans and bottles and reusing them when possible.