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Waste & Opportunity: U.S. Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report, 2008

As You Sow’s second Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report evaluates new and ongoing efforts by beverage producers to: reduce materials use

  1. increase recycled content in containers
  2. raise recovery and recycling rates
  3. support public policy initiatives to increase container recycling rates
  4. disclose such activities to stakeholders

This report recommends corporate actions on recycling that can strengthen U.S. energy security and reduce carbon footprints and resource depletion.

The 2008 U.S. Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report is based primarily on responses to As You Sow’s Beverage Container Recycling Survey, which was sent to 23 beverage companies and on publicly available information from websites and corporate social responsibility reports. The respondents to our survey control 74% of the U.S. carbonated soft drink market, over 60%of the U.S. bottled water market, and almost 50%of the U.S. beer industry

Despite some impressive progress since our last report, most beverage companies continue to fail basic criteria for dealing with the environmental implications of their packaging.

Key findings of the 2008 report include:
  • Coca-Cola Co. outranks its beverage industry peers overall, leading in commitments and performance on beverage container source reduction, company-wide recovery goals, and investments in recycling programs. It has pledged to recover 50% of its plastic bottles and cans by 2015.
  • Leadership in Recycled Plastic and Aluminum: PepsiCo reports the highest percentage use of recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) in its bottles (10%) followed by Coca-Cola at 3%. No other company consistently uses recycled PET. Anheuser Busch uses standard aluminum industry ingots with 41% recycled content whereas both Coca-Cola and Red Bull report that they exceed the standard.
  • Nestlé Waters North America showed the greatest improvement since publication of As You Sow’s 2006 Scorecard, and recently set an industry-wide goal of recycling 60% of PET bottles by 2018.
  • Dr. Pepper/Snapple, maker of 7-up and Canada Dry and the third largest marketer of soft drinks in the U.S., lags behind. They do not have beverage container recycling goals or programs to significantly boost container recycling rates, and are the largest beverage firm not to respond to the survey for this report.
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