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FAST FACTS

BEVERAGE CONTAINER RECYCLING FAST FACTS

All numbers represent U.S. Data and come from the Container Recycling Institute’s 2021

Beverage Market Data Analysis (BMDA) unless otherwise specified.

BEVERAGE CONTAINER SALES & WASTE

PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES:

Plastic water bottle sales have skyrocketed over the last 25-plus years. The following data includes PET and HDPE plastic water bottles combined. PET bottles account for 98% of the total.

• Plastic water bottle sales increased by2,767% from 1997 (3 billion units) to 2021(86 billion units) – a 25-fold increase.

• Of the 86 billion plastic water bottles sold in 2021, 29% (25 billion) were recycled and71% (61 billion) were wasted.

ALUMINUM CONTAINERS:

In 2021, 107 billion aluminum beverage containers were sold, with 54% wasted.

GLASS CONTAINERS:

In 2021, 35 billion glass beverage containers were sold, with 72% wasted.

Data displayed consist of non-sparkling water of ≤ 1 gallon packaged in PET (98% of total sales) and HDPE (1% of total sales). Not shown is the 1% packaged in aluminum cans, glass, cartons and pouches. Prior to 2018, excluded imported water (0.3 billion units in2018).

Data source: Beverage Marketing Corporation, 1998-2024.

AMERICANS' BEVERAGE CONTAINER USE

On a per capita basis, U.S. residents use an average of 899 beverage containers annually. Of these, 34% are recycled and 66% are wasted.

BEVERAGE CONTAINER RECYCLING WASTE SCRAP VALUE

The total scrap value of the 197 billion beverage containers wasted annually in the U.S. totals $3.8 billion.

BEVERAGE CONTAINER RECYCLING JOBS DATA

Depending on system parameters and performance, deposit return systems create 11 to 38 times more jobs than curbside recycling systems for beverage containers.*

A national beverage container deposit return system with a 10-cent deposit would support more than 112,000 full-time-equivalent jobs.*

*Data source: “Returning to Work: Understanding the Jobs Impacts From Different Methods of Recycling Beverage Containers,” © ContainerRecycling Institute, December 2011

The nonprofit Container Recycling Institute (www.container-recycling.org) is a leading authority on the economic and environmental impacts of used beverage containers and other consumer product packaging. Its mission is to make North America a global model for the collection and quality recycling of packaging materials.

BEVERAGE CONTAINER RECYCLING FAST FACTS: JULY 2024

Beverage containers with deposits have significantly higher recycling rates than those without deposits. Ten U.S. states currently operate beverage container deposit return systems (DRS, aka bottle bills). Details on these programs are available at www.bottlebill.org under “Existing Programs.”

BEVERAGE CONTAINER RECYCLING INFORMATION DATA

The energy required to replace wasted beverage containers each year is enough to power 3.4 million U.S. households. (assumes 77.1 million British thermal units (MBtu) per household per year)

A total of 15.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MTCO2) are emitted each year in the U.S. to replace wasted beverage containers. This equates to the annual emissions from 3.3 million cars. (assumes 4.6 MTCO2 per passenger car per year)