Angling Matters

The life cycle of a recycled plastic bottle

PET bottle

PET or PETE (polyethylene terephthlate) plastic bottles are a great invention. They are light, safe and convenient. However, they cause a tremendous problem. According to Robert Glennon's enlightening "Water Follies" book, "by 2001, [bottled water] consumption had risen 1300 percent to 5.4 billion gallons or about 43 billion sixteen-ounce bottles."

Of course, some bottled waters comes in larger sizes (gallon, half-gallon, etc.), so it's impossible to estimate exactly how many plastic bottles are used for drinking water consumption.

Let's take a low estimate of 25 billion water bottles of various sizes per year.

According to figures we've been able to obtain, about 35 percent of the PET plastic bottles used for soft drinks are recycled, and a whopping 55 percent are burned or buried. These figures were for soft drinks, but presumably similar percentages apply to bottled water.

That's a lot of landfill. That's a lot of burning (pollution). Even when recycled, energy is used and there are pollutants.

According to the American Plastics Council (APC), the PET plastic bottle [for all products, not just beverages] recycling rate declined again last year (2000) to an 11-year low of 22 percent.

Can our environmentally sensitive earth continue to absorb these quantities of plastic?

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