Container Recycling Institute
1911 Ft. Myer Drive, Suite 900
Arlington, Virginia 22209
703/276-9800 fax 276-9587

FOR RELEASE: March 31, 1996

CONTACT: Pat Franklin
202/797-6839

Aluminum Can Recycling Rate Hits Lowest Point In Six Years

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 31) --The aluminum can recycling rate dropped to 62.2% last year, its lowest point in six years, according to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), a non-profit, research and public education organization. CRI's Acting Director, Pat Franklin, acknowledged the aluminum industry's success in lightweighting aluminum cans which now weigh just over one-half ounce each, but called the drop in the recycling rate from 65% in 1994 to 62% in 1995, "a giant step backwards." She pointed out that despite aggressive efforts to recover aluminum used beverage cans (UBC) last year, Richmond, VA-based Reynolds Metals Co., one of the largest recyclers of UBC in the nation, recycled 1.6 billion fewer cans in 1995 than in 1994.

The Institute, which analyzes container and packaging generation and recovery data, compared the numbers released today by the Aluminum Association and the Can Manufacturers Institute, to recycling data collected over the past 20 years. "For the eleventh consecutive year Americans threw away over 30 billion aluminum cans weighing more than 500,000 tons," said Franklin. "In those eleven years we have landfilled or burned over 370 billion aluminum cans."

"We trashed a record 38 billion aluminum cans in 1995, 4 billion more than the previous year. This can hardly be called progress," said Franklin. "The tens of billions of aluminum cans we discard each year represent much more than the tons they weigh, cubic yards of landfill space they occupy or the miles of countryside they litter. These containers, that so exemplify our throwaway mentality," she continued, "represent a wealth of energy and resources squandered."

According to CRI, we could have recycled most of the 38 billion cans that weren't recycled. Their research shows that about 95% of aluminum cans are beer and soda cans, and 75% of all packaged beer and soft drinks are in aluminum cans. CRI maintains that the impressive strides in aluminum can recycling in the 70's and 80's, were due primarily to passage of beverage container deposit legislation in nine states, and to the aluminum industry's efforts to buy back aluminum cans, which have a relatively high scrap value.

"Aluminum beverage cans are recovered at rates of 85% in nine states, where they have a deposit value ranging from 2.5 to 10 cents," said Franklin. "Without those high recovery rates, we estimate that the national recycling rate for aluminum cans would be closer to 50%."

The deposit programs in place in the U.S. have been mandated by government, but Franklin points out that there are deposit programs in other countries that have been initiated by industry. "Sweden's deposit program resulted from a government requirement that aluminum cans reach a minimum recycling rate, and the aluminum industry, in order to attain that rate, initiated a deposit system," said Franklin. "In contrast to our 62% recycling rate, Sweden's aluminum can recycling rate exceeds 90%.

"We simply cannot rely on curbside recycling to boost the recycling rate," said Franklin. "In 1989, there were just over 1,000 curbside recycling programs and the aluminum can recycling rate was at 61%. In 1995, with over 7,000 curbside programs, the recycling rate for aluminum cans was still at only 62%. The 600% increase in the number of curbside programs has had almost no impact on the rate of recovery of aluminum cans."

"The deposit/refund system is the only way to reach recovery rates of 75% and higher," said Franklin. "We do not see the aluminum can recycling rate reaching 70% by the year 2000, unless one or two large states pass deposit laws, or the industry initiates a nationwide deposit system," she concluded.

Emily Arnold

The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier. Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing—producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more. At as much as $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline.

The United States is the world’s leading consumer of bottled water, with Americans drinking 26 billion liters in 2004, or approximately one 8-ounce glass per person every day. Mexico has the second highest consumption, at 18 billion liters. China and Brazil follow, at close to 12 billion liters each. Ranking fifth and sixth in consumption are Italy and Germany, using just over 10 billion liters of bottled water each. (See data.)

Italians drink the most bottled water per person, at nearly 184 liters in 2004—more than two glasses a day. Mexico and the United Arab Emirates consume 169 and 164 liters per person. Belgium and France follow close behind, with per capita consumption near 145 liters annually. Spain ranks sixth, at 137 liters each year.

Some of the largest increases in bottled water consumption have occurred in developing countries. Of the top 15 per capita consumers of bottled water, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico have the fastest growth rates, with consumption per person increasing by 44–50 percent between 1999 and 2004. While per capita rates in India and China are not as high, total consumption in these populous countries has risen swiftly—tripling in India and more than doubling in China in that five-year period. And there is great potential for further growth. If everyone in China drank 100 8-ounce glasses of bottled water a year (slightly more than one fourth the amount consumed by the average American in 2004), China would go through some 31 billion liters of bottled water, quickly becoming the world’s leading consumer.

In contrast to tap water, which is distributed through an energy-efficient infrastructure, transporting bottled water long distances involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. Nearly a quarter of all bottled water crosses national borders to reach consumers, transported by boat, train, and truck. In 2004, for example, Nord Water of Finland bottled and shipped 1.4 million bottles of Finnish tap water 4,300 kilometers (2,700 miles) from its bottling plant in Helsinki to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia can afford to import the water it needs, but bottled water is not just sold to water-scarce countries. While some 94 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States is produced domestically, Americans also import water shipped some 9,000 kilometers from Fiji and other faraway places to satisfy the demand for chic and exotic bottled water.

Fossil fuels are also used in the packaging of water. The most commonly used plastic for making water bottles is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is derived from crude oil. Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels [Correction: 15 million barrels] of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year. Worldwide, some 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water each year.

After the water has been consumed, the plastic bottle must be disposed of. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter. Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals. Buried water bottles can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. Almost 40 percent of the PET bottles that were deposited for recycling in the United States in 2004 were actually exported, sometimes to as far away as China—adding to the resources used by this product.

In addition to the strains bottled water puts on our ecosystem through its production and transport, the rapid growth in this industry means that water extraction is concentrated in communities where bottling plants are located. For example, water shortages near beverage bottling plants have been reported in Texas and in the Great Lakes region of North America. Farmers, fishers, and others who depend on water for their livelihoods suffer from the concentrated water extraction when water tables drop quickly.

Studies show that consumers associate bottled water with healthy living. But bottled water is not guaranteed to be any healthier than tap water. In fact, roughly 40 percent of bottled water begins as tap water; often the only difference is added minerals that have no marked health benefit. The French Senate even advises people who drink bottled mineral water to change brands frequently because the added minerals are helpful in small amounts but may be dangerous in higher doses.

The French Senate also noted that small, localized problems with tap water can cause a widespread loss of confidence in municipal supplies. In fact, in a number of places, including Europe and the United States, there are more regulations governing the quality of tap water than bottled water. U.S. water quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for tap water, for instance, are more stringent than the Food and Drug Administration’s standards for bottled water.

There is no question that clean, affordable drinking water is essential to the health of our global community. But bottled water is not the answer in the developed world, nor does it solve problems for the 1.1 billion people who lack a secure water supply. Improving and expanding existing water treatment and sanitation systems is more likely to provide safe and sustainable sources of water over the long term. In villages, rainwater harvesting and digging new wells can create more affordable sources of water.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goal for environmental sustainability calls for halving the proportion of people lacking sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. Meeting this goal would require doubling the $15 billion a year that the world currently spends on water supply and sanitation. While this amount may seem large, it pales in comparison to the estimated $100 billion spent each year on bottled water.

Copyright © 2006 Earth Policy Institute

Plastic water bottles should no longer be a wasted resource

Pat Franklin

Each day in the US more than 60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away. Most end
up in landfills or incinerators, and millions litter America’s streets, parks and waterways.
How can America be spurred on to recycle more?

Today, the oldest liquid on earth is the number one ‘new age’ drink in the United States and in many countries throughout the world. While many noncarbonated beverages have experienced incredible growth over the past decade (such as ready-to-drink tea, fruit juices and sports drinks), noncarbonated bottled water is way ahead of the pack, with sales in the US expected to exceed US $10 billion in 2006.

Health-conscious Americans are consuming water from disposable plastic bottles at a rate of more than 70 million bottles each day. Some are spurred on in a bid to reduce the quantity of sugar in their diet. Others are concerned by the quality of municipal drinking water – a concern that public officials say is unwarranted.

More than 60 million plastic bottles end up in landfills and incinerators every day – a total of about 22 billion last year. Six times as many plastic water bottles were thrown away in the US in 2004 as in 1997. From sea to shining sea, plastic water bottles are clogging the streams and tributaries that feed into America’s rivers. The bottles that are not contained by fallen trees and other debris along our inland waterways are floating out into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. From there they are finding their way to the shores of island communities and coastal countries that are themselves only just beginning to experience the problems associated with plastic beverage bottle waste.

Bottled water – a global phenomenon

Although the US leads the world in the consumption of bottled water, at 26 billion litres in 2004, the bottled water craze is a global phenomenon. According to Beverage Marketing Corporation, worldwide consumption reached 154 billion litres (41 billion gallons) in 2004, an increase of 57% in five years.

Mexico, with a population slightly more than one-third that of the US, is the second largest consumer of bottled water, at 18 billion litres annually. At 12 billion litres each, China and Brazil are not far behind. Italy and Germany rank fifth and sixth in consumption, at 10 billion plus litres each (see Figure 1).

On a per capita basis, Italians are the biggest consumers of bottled water, at nearly184 litres in 2004 – the equivalent of more than two glasses a day. Second and third place in per capita consumption are Mexico and the United Arab Emirates, at 169 and 164 litres respectively. Belgium (including Luxembourg in the statistics) and France are close, with consumption just under 145 litres per person annually (Figure 2).

Global consumption of bottled water has been growing over the past five years despite the fact that in a many places, including Europe and the US, there are more regulations governing the quality of tap water than bottled water.

US water quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for tap water, for example, are more stringent than the Food and Drug Administration’s standards for bottled water.

Consumers are paying a high price to hydrate Most Americans pay a monthly water bill for municipal tap water at an average cost of US $2.00 per 1000 gallons ($0.5 per 1000 litres), according to the American Water Works Association (AWWA). Filtering tap water by means of a filter installed under the kitchen sink brings the cost up to about $0.10 cents a gallon, and a tabletop filter increases the cost to $0.25 cents a gallon.

The Container Recycling Institute conducted an informal survey of prices for bottled water in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. This revealed that prices for 12-packs of Coca-Cola’s Dasani bottled water ranged from $1.57 to $8.26 per gallon, or as much as 4000 times more than tap water. Dasani is filtered tap water.

A comparison of identically sized 12-packs of bottled water linked with different brands and stores revealed prices ranging from $2.99 to $4.99 per gallon. Bottled water can cost as much as 10,000 times more than tap water, according to the AWWA.

But the price that consumers are paying for the bottled water itself pales in comparison to the price they’re paying for the environmental consequences of manufacturing, transport, and disposal of the bottles. The Earth Policy Institute estimates that making bottles to meet the US demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels [Correction: 15 million barrels] of oil annually, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year.

Transport and disposal of the bottles adds to the resources used, and water extraction – which is concentrated in communities where bottling plants are located – adds to the strains bottled water puts on our ecosystem.

What happens to plastic single-serving water bottles after they’re drained?

Only about one in six plastic water bottles sold in the US in 2004 was recycled, leading to a national recycling rate of about 17%. According to the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) 4637 million pounds (2103 million kg) of PET beverage, food, and non-food bottles were sold in 2004. Of the 803 million pounds (364 million kg) that were converted to clean flake:

• 298 million pounds (135 million kg) were exported, primarily to Asia

• 505 million pounds (229 million kg) were used domestically to make new products such as polyester jackets, carpet, film, strapping and new PET bottles.

Only a small percentage of PET bottles sold are used to make new plastic bottles – approximately 4%. The paucity of closed-loop recycling means that new water bottles must be manufactured almost entirely from virgin petroleum resin, consuming vast amounts of energy and resources. Increasing the quantity of bottles containing recycled content would greatly reduce energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

The Coca-Cola Company has committed to using recycled content in 10% of all their plastic beverage bottles sold in North America. PepsiCo has committed to using 10% recycled content in their plastic soft drink and water bottles sold in the US. Other bottled water producers are silent on the issue. Although both Coca-Cola and Pepsi met their recycled content goals in 2005, plastics recycling experts doubt they will reach them in 2006 due to the lack of supply of collected scrap bottles.

Demand for PET bottles far exceeds supply

The growing national consumption of single-serving water bottles made from raw materials is an unnecessary waste of resources, as dozens of recycling businesses have the capacityto recycle these and other PET bottles. They have an economic interest in recycling. Scrap bottles provide a costsaving alternative to virgin resin both for processors and end-users, who manufacture new bottles and other plastic products. NAPCOR’s ‘2004 Report on Post-Consumer PET Recycling Activity’ stated that ‘Even with the increases posted in 2004, supply remains inadequate [for] all end-use applications at their desired levels.’

Why are scrap PET bottles in short supply?  Why, when Americans are throwing away 22 billion plastic water bottles a year, are there not enough scrap bottles for plastics recyclers? One problem is China’s seemingly insatiable appetite for PET, and the inability of domestic recyclers to compete with the prices China is willing to pay.

According to NAPCOR, US exports of scrap PET bottles increased from 143 million pounds (65 million kg) in 1998 to 298 million pounds (135 million kg) in 2004. Exports aside, there were more than 3633 million pounds(1648 million kg) of domestic scrap PET bottles that could have been recycled, but were not.

The broken link between postconsumer PET bottles and plastics processors is the lack of an adequate collection infrastructure.

First, nearly one-half of the US population does not have access tokerbside recycling and probably never will. These include individuals and families who live in very rural areas or in high-rise apartment buildings. Even in communities that are served by a kerbside programme, not everyone participates due to apathy, bad weather, confusion about what can and can’t be recycled, or just plain laziness.

But even if every family in America had access to kerbside recycling, water bottles are much more likely to be consumed in hotels, offices, schools, and during sporting events and outdoor activities than most beverages, and would not likely make it into the kerbside recycling bin. Recycling in commercial buildings is scarce, and recycling at sports, entertainment venues, parks and beach areas has proven extremely challenging.

Another problem is that only two of the 10 states (Maine and California) that implemented container deposit laws prior to 2002 have updated their laws to include bottled water and other non-carbonated beverages (which didn’t exist when these programmes were enacted more than 20 years ago).

What is needed to stem the growing tide of plastic water bottle waste?

Consumers need to appreciate the fact that their municipal water is not only safe to drink, but it may even be safer than bottled water. They also need to appreciate the multiplicity of environmental problems created by their consumption of bottled water. But even if consumption were to be reduced dramatically, there would still be billions of post-consumerplastic water bottles that would need to be managed.

Financial incentives, in the form of refundable deposits, provide a collection infrastructure that works both at home and away from home.

In South America and Europe, many beverage companies, including global beverage giant Coca-Cola, still offer their products in refillable bottles. (Most have switched from glass to PET plastic refillables to reduce transportation costs.) In the US, beer and soft drinks were packaged exclusively in refillable glass bottles until one-way bottles and cans were introduced in the 1940s and 1950s. Today, refillable bottles are just a memory for older American consumers. Younger consumers have no memory of refillables at all.

Refundable deposits in eleven states provide a financial incentive to return beverage containers for recycling and a collection infrastructure. In 1999, a report by Businesses and Environmentalists Allied for Recycling (BEAR) found that approximately 28% of the US population lived in the10 states with a container deposit law, and consumers in those states recycled 490 containers per capita, as opposed to consumers in the 40 non-deposit states who recycled only 191 containers per capita. (In 2002, Hawaii became the 11th state to implement a container deposit law. The law covers water and other non-carbonated beverages.)

One only has to look at the difference between the national recycling rates for PET soda bottles and the rates for PET water bottles to see what a difference a deposit makes. In 2004, the recycling rate for US custom PET bottles, which include food and non-food bottles and jars, and all beverage bottles except carbonated drinks, was only about 17%, while the PET soda bottle recycling rate was 34%.

The higher rate for PET soda bottles is due to the fact that consumers in the 11 container deposit states are recycling their plastic soda bottles at rates above 75% on average. This high recycling rate raises the national rate for these bottles.

Recycling rates for plastic PET bottles and other containers are higher in many other countries than in the US. For example, in 2004 the PET bottle recycling in the US was 15% compared with a rate of 80% in Sweden, where deposits are required on all aluminium cans and one-way PET bottles. Aluminium cans were also recycled at far higher rates in Sweden – 85% as opposed to 45% in the US.

Why aren’t there more container deposit laws in the US?

Several states that require deposits on carbonated beverages are currently seeking to update their laws. Meanwhile, otherstates are trying to pass new container deposit laws, but the beverage and retail industries and their trade associations, including the International Bottled Water Association, are a powerful force in state legislatures and the US Congress.

Through campaign contributions, high-powered lobbyists, and expensive public relations firms, they are able to keep proposed container deposit legislation bottled up in committees at both the state and national levels.

There have been several attempts at national dialogues on the growing beverage container waste problem involving BEAR, an organization that no longer exists, and the Beverage Producers Environmental Council (BPEC), a group beverage producers formed three years ago to address the issue of falling beverage container recycling rates.

Finally, the US EPA has attempted to bring stakeholders together to address the beverage container waste problem.

But so far nothing in the way of a solution has come from these efforts. As the publisher of a US recycling magazinestated: ‘In terms of beverage container stewardship, the industry, along with the National Recycling Coalition, continues to talk, talk and talk, and study, study and study.

Critics, however, say enough with all this; they want to see action, action and action.’ (Resource Recycling)

The number of plastic water bottles sold in the US grew from 4 billion in 1997 to an estimated 26 billion in 2005 (Figure 3) while the number thrown away increased from 3.4 billion to 22 billion. Plastic bottle waste is not just a national problem in the US, it’s a national disgrace. Without a nationwide system of deposits, expansion of existing deposit laws or some other dramatic new collection infrastructure, America faces a growing mountain of plastic bottle waste with all of the resulting social and environmental consequences.

Pat Franklin is Executive Director of the Container Recycling Institute, based in Washington, DC, US. CRI is a non-profit organization that studies container and packaging recycling options and provides a clearinghouse for information on beverage container recycling.

Further information

• Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype, Natural Resources Defense Council

• Water Rights Project

• Plastic Water Bottle Waste

• Sierra Club’s Bottled Water Campaign