Adele Peters writes in Fast Company on refillable soda bottles and plastic pollution.
- Coca-cola has announced that by the end of the decade it will sell a quarter of its drinks in refillable containers.
- A recent Oceana study estimates that if refillable container use grew by just 10%, 22% of ocean pollution from PET plastics would be eliminated.
- 90% of ocean plastics come from 10 rivers, most of which are in Asia and Africa and are nations with very little private property rights protections.
- Reducing plastic pollution will require companies to change packaging methods, consumers to change preferences, and property rights worldwide to be strengthened.
“While bottle deposit fees and other policy changes could help improve recycling rates, reusable bottles have a second advantage of using far less material, shrinking the environmental footprint of the packaging. Even glass bottles, which use more energy than plastic to produce and transport, can have a lower carbon footprint than single-use plastic bottles when the glass bottles are repeatedly reused.”
Read the full article here.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.
