Container and Packaging Recycling Update - Volume XV No. 1 - Spring 2007

20/20 Vision: Setting our Sights on
Zero Beverage Container Waste by 2020

Millions of consumers who recycle every day think because they recycle their bottles and cans, everyone else is recycling, too. In fact, CRI estimates that Americans waste more than 450 bottles and cans per capita per year: twice as many as we recycle.

Upstream environmental impactsof this wasting include: energy consumption equivalent to 54 million barrels of crude oil per year, annual generation of about 4.5 million tons of greenhouse gasses, emission of a host of toxics to the air and water, and damage to wildlife habitat. Downstream impacts include landfilling and littering more than 135 billion beverage cans and bottles each year

In an effort to reverse this wasting trend and make beverage consumption more sustainable, CRI is sponsoring a campaign we are calling 2020 Vision: Setting our Sights on Zero Beverage Container Waste. We can’t get to Zero Waste overnight, so we are setting an interim goal of cutting beverage container waste by 25% by 2008.

We invite consumers, state and local government agencies, recycling businesses, public and elected officials, socially responsible investors, beverage producers, and retailers to join us in bringing national attention to the global environmental impacts of making more than 135 billion new beverage containers each year from virgin materials.

More information on CRI’s Zero Beverage Container Waste Campaign can be found at
www.container-recycling.org/zbcwaste

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