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Last
modified:
March 23, 2019
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PROBLEM:
More than 120 billion aluminum, plastic and glass
disposable, single-serve beverage containers are littered or wasted
in the United States every year, and container recycling rates are
plummeting. This unconscionable waste of resources has enormous energy,
climate change and pollution impacts. Worse, the beverage industry
is working overtime to replace industry operated return-refill systems
with wasteful, taxpayer funded collection systems all over the world.
SOLUTION: The beverage industry knows
what works to recover containers because they invented the deposit
system for refillable glass bottles, and they operate the system in
the 10 U.S. states where they are required to do it. Those 10 states
with deposits recycle more bottles and cans than all the other 40
states together. When corporations take responsibility for their products
and packaging at end of life, there is an incentive to make less wasteful,
less toxic, less over-packaged and more durable products. For beverage
containers, that means that container wasting will only decrease significantly
when brand owners (the place in the supply chain that has the most
control over packaging decisions) are made to take physical or financial
responsibility for getting their containers back.
CAMPAIGN
UPDATE: As a result of consumer pressure, Coca-Cola is making
progress towards their original goal of using 25% recycled plastic
in bottles (they are close to 10% in North America). In February
2002, Pepsi committed to using 10% recycled plastic by 2002.
Coca-Cola participated in an objective, multi-stakeholder project
to assess options to increase container recovery, but they abandoned
the project after a report by the beverage industry's own consultants
showed the effectiveness of deposits and ways of making them
more cost effective. |
(See
the links in table above right for more. Click on the links in the
table below to navigate further down this page)
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National
Beverage Producer Responsibility Act of 2003[top]
BEAR
Report [top]
A new report on beverage
container recycling suggests that we can double recovery of beverage containers
- and save money at the same time. These are the unexpected findings of
a study carried out under the watchful eyes of both beverage industry
and environmental representatives, through Businesses and Environmentalists
Allied for Recycling (BEAR).
GRRN
Statement (January 2002) [pdf]
About
the Report
Executive
Summary [pdf]
Full
Report (January 2002) [off-site]
Essential
Elements [top]
Based on the BEAR
report, a group of NGO and government participants developed a list
of essential elements of a deposit systems that maximize environmental
performance while giving industry flexibility to minimize costs. Below
are analyses of existing North American deposit systems that embody
different elements, a link to a website with descriptions of all North
American deposit systems, and a link to research on promoting beverage
container reuse.
Trashed
Cans: The
Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can
Wasting in America,
July 2003, by Container Recycling Institute [off-site]
Refillable
Beverage Containers
Anti-Trust
Boondoggle[top]
Here's a
breathtaking story -- how Coke and Pepsi got Congressional exemption from
anti-trust for their exclusive distributor franchises based on their testimony
to preserve the environmental benefits and economic necessities of small
businesses operating a system based on refillable bottles. Within months
of passage in 1980, however, Coke and Pepsi began dismantling the refillable
infrastructure and eliminating mom & pop bottlers. Coke and Pepsi
should be held responsible for providing increased environmental benefits
under the current system or Congress should remove the exclusive (and
very profitable) franchises enjoyed by the distributors. Hence the rationale
for an EPR-style bottle bill to level the playing field.
Beverage
Container Wasting
[top]
Why all the fuss about beverage container wasting? For one thing, 114
billion soda and beer containers were wasted -- buried, burned or littered
-- in 1999, and the number is growing.
Shareholder
Campaign [top]
Socially responsible
investors are asking Pepsi and Coke to commit to achieving container
recovery levels for all containers currently attained in most deposit
states (80%), as well as to use 25% recycled plastic in plastic soda
bottles.
*
GrassRoots Recycling Network worked closely with Container Recycling
Institute on the Beverage Campaign. Some of the materials on this
site were developed with CRI. |
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