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

Beverage market share for non-carbs
doubles in just eight years

by Pat Franklin and Jenny Gitlitz

Figure 1

Our report released in February, titled “Water, Water Everywhere: The Growth of Non-Carbonated Beverages in the U.S.,” showed that market share for non-carbonated beverages nearly doubled from 14% to 27% in a period of 8 years (see Figure 1), while sales of plastic water bottles doubled from 15 billion to 29.8 billion in just 3 years (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

The report also included data showing that American consumers spent more than $270 billion on beverages in 2005 (excluding milk) —29% more than they spent in 2002, even though consumption remained unchanged at 121.5 gallons per capita (see Table 1). The increase in the cost of beverages was almost three times the increase in the Consumer Price Index.

Table 1

Packaged and Fountain Beverage Sales, 2002 and 2005
	2002	2005	Increase
			#	%
Gallons Sold (Millions)	34,019	35,969	1,950	6%
Dollars Spent (Millions)	$210,078	$270,731	$60,653	29%
Cost per gallon	$6.18	$7.53	$1.35	22%
Source: Beverage World, May 2006

Much of the increase in beverage dollar sales can be attributed to the move to smaller plastic beverage bottles, particularly in the bottled water segment. These small, single-serve plastic bottles are primarily consumed away from home and are more likely to end up in a trash can than a recycling bin.

Beverage producers, bottlers and distributors are profiting from increased beverage sales, and taxpayers are paying the tab for cleaning up mountains of litter and burying growing numbers of containers in landfills.

The report includes data showing that Americans purchased 214.5 billion beverage containers (excluding milk) in 2005: 20.4 billion more than in 2002. Almost the entire increase, or about 19 billion containers, were in non-fizzy drinks. Overall growth in the non-carbonated categories, however, does not reflect how steep the increase was for bottled water alone. Sales of bottled water 2 liters and less nearly doubled from 2002 to 2005 (see Figure 2), but sales increased eight-fold from 1997 to 2005.

Beer and carbonated soft drinks comprised 84% of the beverage market in 1997, while non-carbonated beverages made up just 14%. By 2005 non-carbonated drinks had grown to 27%, while beer and soda market share dropped to 71% (see Figure 1).

The new data show that at the current growth rate, units of non-carbonated beverage containers will overtake soft drink container sales by 2010 (see Figure 3). Plastic water bottles, at close to 30 billion in 2005, have already surpassed the number of plastic soda bottles sold.

Figure 3

In 2005, manufacturing 134 billion new beverage containers from raw materials—to replace those wasted —consumed the energy equivalent of 53.5 million barrels of crude oil, and produced approximately 4.8 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions: the same amount released by 3 million typical American cars each year.

Few lawmakers and public officials are aware of the environmental impacts of beverage container wasting. Nor are they aware of the fact that there are many businesses that profit from using post-consumer glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminum cans to make new containers or other products and packaging.

Both processors and end users of these scrap containers would benefit from having a steady supply of high-quality post-consumer beverage containers to use as feedstocks to make new containers and other products.

Public officials in states with container deposit laws are aware of the unprecedented growth in non-carbonated segment of the beverage market, which has increased nationally from nearly zero 25 years ago to 27% today and growing.

Officials involved with solid waste disposal, recycling and litter cleanup are putting pressure on state legislators to update container deposit laws to include these popular drinks that deposit advocates say would have been included if they been on the market at the time the laws were enacted.

With consumers spending more on packaged beverages and getting less for their money, it would seem that adding a small, refundable deposit of a nickel or a dime to the price of bottled water and other non-carbonated drinks would not pose a hardship on consumers.

The report can be found at www.container-recycling.org/assets/pdfs/reports/2007-waterwater.pdf

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