Products

Packaging, Beverage Containers and Product Stewardship

In 2002, Americans failed to recycle an estimated 140 billion aluminum, glass, and plastic beverage containers—33% more than were wasted a decade ago. These throwaway containers ended up in landfills and incinerators, or were littered on beaches, playgrounds, country roads, and city streets. The costs to state and local governments for disposal, recycling, and litter cleanup of one-way, no-return beverage containers adds up to millions of dollars a year, dollars that could be spent on other programs.

What is the Problem?

In 2002 in the State of Washington over 3.5 billion containers of all types were sold, of which only 37% were recycled. These containers were made with steel and aluminum, plastic, plastic coated paper and glass. Unfortunately 63% of these containers ended up in the landfill wasting the energy and materials that went into the manufacture and transportation of those products. The environmental impact from this wasting is substantial. By recycling rather than disposing of the containers we could have saved over 456 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, 500,000 pounds of lead emissions and 3 billion btu’s of energy. Imagine these numbers multiplied over the other 39 states that currently do not have container deposits and you begin to see the magnitude of the waste. The recovery rate for containers has been dropping every year since the late 1990’s. Coincidentally, this drop in recycling has occurred as more and more beverages have been sold in lightweight, to-go containers. It is believed that this new container portability has been one of the major causes of the recycling drop.

The Product Stewardship Solution

There are many ways to increase beverage container recycling. One way is to provide the public with an incentive to return their containers in the form of a deposit. With a cash value on each container, consumers have an incentive to return their containers for the redemption value regardless of where they are when they finish it. The ten states with container deposits are recycling more bottles and cans than the other 40 states combined and account for over 90% of the container recycling that occurs.

Glass and other materials collected through deposit systems, unlike those collected through curbside recycling programs, are of a higher quality, and thus more marketable. The amount of the deposit also has an impact on the recovery rate. Michigan, the only state with a 10 cent deposit, also has the highest recovery rate, 95%.

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