Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Recycle your plastic water bottles
Bottled water is the single largest growth area among all beverages, that includes alcohol, juices and soft drinks. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over the last decade, from 10.5 gallons in 1993 to 22.6 in 2003, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation.
The growth has been even more impressive in terms of water bottles sold: from 3.3 billion in 1997 to 15 billion in 2002.
But most bottled water is consumed away from home, usually at a park, in an office or even while driving — areas where there's usually no recycling.
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Only about 12 percent of "custom" plastic bottles, a category dominated by water, were recycled in 2003, according to industry consultant R.W. Beck, Inc. That's 40 million bottles a day that went into the trash or became litter. In contrast, the recycling rate for plastic soft drink bottles is around 30 percent.
The low water bottle recycling rate also impacts the overall recycling rate of all plastic, or PET, products. That's fallen from 53 percent in 1994 to 19 percent in 2003.
Plastics should be recycled so that less petroleum — a finite commodity — is consumed, Franklin says.
Story.
posted by chris at 5:14 PM
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