Tap Water vs. Bottled Water

Last updated on October 30, 2022.

A glass of tap water next to a plastic bottle of water. — Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay.

Now that I’ve terrified you about the contaminants in tap water in Part 1 and Part 2 of What’s In Your Water? you may be thinking about switching to bottled water. But which is better?

The short answer is that you are better off drinking tap water, despite the contamination problems we have in the United States.

Is Bottled Water Safer?

No. While there has always been a debate about whether tap water or bottled water is safer, the answer is that tap water is safer. Studies have discovered that most bottled water brands are from a tap water source. Some use distillation or reverse osmosis processes. But few are from actual springs or glaciers.

Tap water is always tested and the results are publicly reported. But bottled water is not necessarily held to the same standards. “Public drinking water facilities are required to test for contaminants each year and publicly disclose the results, while the bottled water industry is not required by law to disclose the results of its testing.”¹

“Bottled water is not regulated by the EPA, which is responsible for the quality of water that comes out of your tap.” -Erin Brockovich²

Gallon bottle of distilled water, — Gallon bottle of distilled water; note that the source was “municipal water.” Photo by me.

Gallon bottle of distilled water, the label. — Gallon bottle of distilled water; note that the source was “municipal water.” Photo by me.

Cost of Bottled Water vs. Tap Water

Kitchen faucet with running water. — Photo by Imani on Unsplash.

Bottled water is “one of the greatest scams of all time…bottled water is roughly 2,800 times more expensive than tap water!”³ Other estimates are slightly lower at more than 2,200 times more expensive than tap water, exhibiting the outrageous markups of bottled water. Bottled water, at these rates, costs far more per gallon than gasoline has ever cost us.⁴

The costs above are based on single bottles of water, the 16-20 ounce size, usually sold at the checkouts of department stores or at convenience stores. Those generally cost between $1 and $3 each. But what if you buy in bulk?

A 24-pack of Dasani 16.9-ounce bottles at Target is $5.49 where I live, or almost 23 cents per bottle. The same amount of Great Value brand bottled water at Walmart is $3.18, or just 13 cents per bottle. That seems significantly cheaper, but it isn’t when we compare it to tap water.

The Dasani water at Target costs about $1.73 per gallon of water, and the Walmart water costs about $1.00 per gallon. Tap water costs an average of $0.005 per gallon in the United States. Nationwide the average cost for municipal water is about $2.50 per thousand gallons. This is grossly less expensive than bottled water.

“The outrageous success of bottled water…is an unparalleled social phenomenon, one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” -Elizabeth Royte⁵

Bottled Water Sales

Shelves of bottled water at a grocery store. — Photo by me.

According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), between 1960 and 1970 the average person bought 200 to 250 packaged drinks each year, mostly soda and beer.⁶ In the 1970s, Americans purchased about 350 million gallons of bottled water. “Much of that came in the big five-gallon jugs used in office water coolers; the rest made up a niche market of mineral waters bottled from natural springs.”⁷ With increased interest in health and fitness during the 1980s, bottled water saw more increases in sales.

Once bottled water took hold of consumers, its sales increased exponentially. “Between 1990 and 1997, U.S. sales of bottled water shot from $115 million to $4 billion, boosted by public health messages against obesity, by multimillion-dollar ad campaigns that emphasized the perceived health benefits of bottled water…Between 1997 and 2006, U.S. sales of bottled water leaped from $4 billion to $10.8 billion, or 170 percent.”⁸

By 2020, we increased to purchasing 15 billion gallons of bottled water annually in the United States.⁹ We spend more than $16 billion per year on it. It outsells bottled soda annually. Globally, bottled water consumption grows each year, now totaling over 100 billion gallons annually.

The Marketing of Bottled Water

“In the end, it’s hard to untangle how much of bottled water’s success was due to clever marketing and ‘manufactured demand,’ and how much of it was driven by shifting consumer preferences. Health concerns, the desire for status symbols, the lure of convenience, and, yes, lots and lots of energetic marketing—all played a role.” -Robert Moss, Serious Eats¹⁰

The huge growth in bottled water sales was largely due to marketing. Many companies started advertising bottled water as either a safer option than tap, or a healthier alternative to sugary drinks. Early in the 2000s, the same era where we saw major growth in bottled water production and sales, a chairman of PepsiCo said: “The biggest enemy is tap water. . . . We’re not against water — it just has its place. We think it’s good for irrigation and cooking.”¹¹ They were ready to market bottled water as better than tap water.

When bottled water first started selling everywhere, it was a great alternative to soda and fruity bottled drinks. Plus, people could carry the bottle around and refill it over and over, not knowing that that was dangerous. According to Serious Eats, “A tectonic shift was under way in the beverage industry, and it involved much more than water. Americans were looking for alternatives to carbonated soft drinks, and water was just one of many options—including bottled teas and lemonades, like Snapple and AriZona Iced Tea; sports drinks, like Gatorade and Powerade; and even coffee-based drinks.”¹²

But marketing bottled water as safer and superior to tap water was a shady tactic. Corporations were looking to make as much money as they could, and bottled tap water reaps huge profits. There has always been a barrage of advertisements from companies producing bottled water, claiming that theirs is the purest and the healthiest. “Water municipalities can’t possibly compete with these companies when it comes to advertising,” wrote Erin Brockovich.¹³

Dasani (Coca-Cola) advertisement, screenshot taken from their website. Dasani is tap water filtered with reverse osmosis. — Dasani (Coca-Cola) advertisement, screenshot taken from their website.

One example is Dasani, which is simply tap water filtered with reverse osmosis filtration. What are the minerals that enhance the water? No one exactly knows as the company does not disclose that information. “DASANI adds a variety of minerals, including salt, to create the crisp fresh taste you know and love. Although we are unable to disclose the exact quantities of minerals added to our water, we can tell you that the amounts of these minerals (including salt) are so minuscule that the US Food and Drug Administration considers them negligible or ‘dietarily insignificant.'”¹⁴ I think consumers have a right to know.

“Bottled water labels can be confusing. They portray an illusion of virtue, with images and messages printed on the bottles saying they are filled with water from pure mountain springs, while many of these bottles contain tap water in a fancy-looking to-go package.” -Erin Brockovich¹⁵

The Plastic Bottles

Many plastic water bottles with white caps. — Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash.

Historically, single beverages consisted of mostly soda and beer. More importantly, many of those were in refillable glass bottles, or at least recyclable aluminum cans. But today many beverages, especially bottled water, come in plastic bottles.

Plastics are made from petroleum and chemicals. And it takes a ton of petroleum to produce plastic bottles. It’s ridiculous that the price of oil is so high but petroleum-based plastics are produced cheaply and discarded as easily as toilet paper. That doesn’t even account for the transportation of bottled water. “Bottled water requires 2,000 times more energy than tap water to produce the same amount.”¹⁶ Worse, it takes about 22 gallons of water to produce a single pound of plastic, “which means it takes 3 liters of water to make 1 liter of bottled water,” according to Kathryn Kellogg, a zero waste expert.¹⁷ Even more distressing, only 9% of plastics are recycled.

“More than 17 million barrels of oil are wasted to produce the water bottles Americans buy in a typical year.” -Fran Hawthorne, Ethical Chic¹⁸

Chemicals Leaching into Bottled Water

Cases of Dannon bottled water outside with forklifts in background, in Florida. Plastic leaches toxins when exposed to heat. These are sitting outdoors at a Florida warehouse, where it is hot year round. — Cases of Dannon bottled water, in Florida. Plastic leaches toxins when exposed to heat. These are sitting outdoors at a Florida warehouse, where it is hot year round. Image by David Mark from Pixabay.

On top of that, plastics leach chemicals into the water. Plastics are polymers derived from oil with other chemicals added to make them flexible, strong, and colorful. You can read more about chemicals in plastics in my articles here and here. The chemicals in plastic bottles, such as phthalates, bisphenols, and antimony,¹⁹ leach into the water, especially under heated conditions or from exposure to ultraviolet light (sunlight). By the time bottled water has been stored for months, or even years, it is unknown how many chemicals have leached into the water.

Reusable Water Bottles

Your own reusable water bottle should be metal or glass. Don’t buy a plastic one. Even those that advertise “BPA-Free” or that have similar disclaimers contain chemicals in the plastics that are likely harmful.

You can ask almost any restaurant, cafe, or coffee shop to fill your water bottle, and they will almost always comply. You can use water fountains or water bottle refill stations, which are now found in parks, museums, airports, libraries, and other public areas. There are global networks of refill station maps at findtap.com (best for U.S. users) and refillmybottle.com (best for global users).

Water bottle filling station at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon. Two drinking fountains and a bottle refill section behind the fountains. — Water bottle filling station at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon. Photo by Jeremy Jeziorski on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).

Water bottle filling station at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Drinking fountain at right and bottle fill section at left. — Water bottle filling station at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Photo by Taylor Notion, used with permission.

“The fact is that bottling water and shipping it is a big waste of fuel, so stop already. The water that comes to your house through a pipe is good enough, and maybe better.” –Garrison Keillor, Salt Lake Tribune²⁰

Stick With Tap Water

Today, corporations market bottled water to us in so many ways. They sell enhanced or vitamin waters, flavored waters, sparkling waters, and even luxury waters.²¹ Plastics pose health concerns about chemicals leaching into the water. There are some brands that use a “box” or carton, but those are not recyclable. Aluminum or glass are better options, but you are still paying far too much for water.

Stop buying bottled water. There are exceptions, of course. If you are in a situation without your reusable bottle and are desperate for water, buy the bottle of water. Bottled water is also extremely important for emergencies and emergency relief efforts.

While there are a lot of contaminants in tap water, stick with it anyway. Just get a good water filtration system. Corporations are bottling water with just filtered tap or “municipal” water. On the occasion you do buy bottled water, do not reuse the water bottle or leave it anywhere it can get hot, such as in a car. Just recycle it.

I hope this article has helped! Let me know if you have any questions or ideas by leaving a comment below. Thank you for reading, and please share and subscribe!

Footnotes:

June 12, 2020August 26, 2021

The Packaging Industry and How We Can Consume Differently, Part 7

Last updated on August 23, 2021.

Bell pepper and green beans in convenient plastic packaging — These food items do not require this much packaging. Photo by me

In my last article, I introduced take-back programs. Today we will continue that topic and look at programs that are a bit more successful, meaning that the rate of recycling is high.

Snack bag found on the beach in South Carolina. Photo by me

“Plastic packaging for food makes up the majority of municipal waste in America.” -A Plastic Ocean

TerraCycle programs

I love TerraCycle’s entire concept of making new things from waste, and I think its mission of recycling everything and eliminating waste is brilliant. Many companies sponsor take-back programs through TerraCycle at no cost to the consumer.¹ These are awesome for waste streams in which there is no recycling option. There’s one for instrument strings, pens and writing tools (which has a waiting list), and Brita filters. I participate in Bausch + Lomb’s free program to recycle contact lenses and their blister packs (and they accept all brands, not just Bausch + Lomb).² This particular program has drop-off sites all over the place, usually at eye care offices. I love this one because I have to wear contact lenses for vision correction.

Though these programs encourage recycling and keep waste from littering the environment, they actually discourage companies from exploring new packaging options. A company can sponsor a recycling stream, such as waste from applesauce packets, juice pouches, snack bags, cosmetic and personal care items, and pay TerraCycle to recycle the items. In this way, the companies can take a passive approach and not have to deal with the problem directly. It gives consumers the impression that those companies are taking sustainable actions, but it really makes waste the consumer’s problem. It takes a lot of time and effort to clean, save, and ship the items; and even if the program is free, not everyone can or will voluntarily do it. These programs are a band-aid for the gushing wound of pollution.

“These programs are often funded by consumer product brands and are usually just a mechanism for the company to claim their non-recyclable products are recyclable.” -Jennie Romer, attorney and sustainability expert³

Again, I love what TerraCycle is doing! But I think it gives companies a reason to not be more active in their sustainability efforts. I think it’s a way for companies to take a NIMBY (“not in my back yard”) approach but not have to do much more than cover the minor costs. TerraCycle should be used for things people cannot avoid using, such as Brita filters, contact lenses, laundry detergent waste, shoes, and school supplies. But there are alternatives for things like snack bags, applesauce pouches, and coffee pods. Consumers should seek alternatives for those rather than trying to recycle them.

Glass Bottle Exchange

Homestead Creamery returnable milk bottles — This type of milk bottle used to be commonplace. Photo from Homestead Creamery

Historically, the bottled beverage industry used take-back programs during the twentieth century. This system of using returnable glass bottles for milk and soft drinks was better than recycling because it was truly a circular economy system. It is also the most sustainable type of container deposit program. Bottles were washed and refilled as many as 20-50 times. While a few companies use this system today through a deposit program, like Homestead Creamery (sold at some Kroger’s grocery stores), this system of glass bottle exchange has largely disappeared in the United States. However, you can check Drink Milk In Glass Bottle’s website to see if there are any options in your region.⁴

Glass Coca-Cola bottles in red carry cases — Remember these? Image by SatyaPrem from Pixabay

Container Deposit Programs

A very successful type of take-back program is the container deposit program. While sometimes controversial, they reduce litter and environmental pollution and improve recycling rates. The consumer is charged a deposit fee of 5 or 10 cents per bottle or can. When the consumer returns that item for recycling, they get their deposit money back. This can include glass, plastic, and aluminum bottles and cans. Some call this system a tax, but it is clearly a deposit – when you return the container you get your money back, unlike with taxes.

Soda can with container deposit information engraved. — Many cans and bottles feature container deposit information as shown here. Photo by me

Benefits

The Container Recycling Institute (CRI) promotes the bottled beverage deposit system internationally.⁵ There are so many benefits to this system, as CRI President Susan Collins noted:⁶

- - Dramatic reductions in litter and marine debris
  - Reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions due to fewer containers that need to be made from virgin materials
  - Additional jobs in recycling
  - More high-quality scrap for manufacturers
  - Extra income for consumers, charities, and community groups

Here’s a great short video from CRI explaining the system:

These systems are not meant to replace curbside recycling, but to supplement them to increase overall recycling. Curbside recycling is still not available to 50% of the American population, and curbside doesn’t address away-from-home consumption. Even where it is available, recycling rates have gradually dropped. “This decline is due in part to the increase in consumption of beverages away from home, and in public places where there are few available collection outlets for recycling. The drop in the recycling rate is also due to the shift away from aluminum to PET, which has a lower recycling rate,” according to Bottled Up: Beverage Container Recycling Stagnates (2000-2010).⁷

“Using only single-stream curbside recycling (blue bins) fails to achieve even half of the recycling rate of container deposit laws. While curbside programs should be part of the recycling equation, because 30 percent to 50 percent of beverage containers are consumed away from home, residential programs alone can’t possibly be expected to produce high recycling rates.” -Susan Collins, CRI President

Container Deposit Programs are Quantifiably Successful

The first US beverage container deposit laws were passed in the early 1970s in Oregon and Vermont. Currently, this program exists in 10 US states and Guam, and 30 other countries around the world. “States with container deposit laws capture beverage bottles for recycling at a significantly higher rate, and the quality of recycled materials (meaning the level of contamination) is superior to materials collected from curbside recycling programs.”⁸ The overall recycling rate for bottles and cans with a deposit is 59%, compared to only 22% for bottles and cans without a deposit. Clearly, this system works well. The graph below shows the rates:

Graph from the Container Recycling Institute (CRI)

The participating states are California, Connecticut, New York, Vermont, Michigan, Maine, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Oregon. Oregon’s bottle capture rate is 81%. Sadly, there are no states in the southeast or states that border the Gulf of Mexico that participate. These are missed opportunities to protect our oceans and rivers.

Examples

Oregon’s BottleDrop Refillables program is a successful, circular loop between the program and craft breweries. Consumers pay a deposit and return the bottles to get the deposit back. Bottles are sorted, washed, inspected, and delivered back to Oregon’s craft beverage producers. According to their website, 598,755 bottles have been saved from being crushed and recycled.⁹ An example in Europe is Germany, where almost 46% of all drinks are sold in reusable bottles which are refilled 40-50 times before being sent for recycling.

Container Deposit Programs as Law

Legislation for this system is commonly referred to as “Bottle Bills.” A national bottle bill could be implemented as part of the recently proposed Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2020. This would make the collection, redemption, and recycling of bottles and cans regulated and consistent and could increase the recycling rate to 80%!

“For the sake of our climate, our oceans and our future generations, we must do more to collect high-quality recyclable bottles and cans that can be used to produce new products. A national container deposit-refund law can make that happen.” -Susan Collins, CRI President¹⁰

Unfortunately, bottlers are usually against such bills because they do increase costs for them, though only slightly. Elizabeth Royte, the author of Bottlemania, wrote that every time a new Container Deposit bill is introduced or an expansion is proposed for an existing one, “Coke, Pepsi, and other bottlers hire lobbyists and run ad campaigns designed to stop them. And they usually do.” But the companies making so many single-use disposable containers need to step-up and be part of the solution.

Containers as Litter

I personally grew up in a container deposit state that also had curbside recycling, and never even thought to question it. It was just what we did (in addition to curbside recycling). Our family brought back bottles and cans to the grocery store each week, and we’d receive either the cash or a credit on our grocery total. I continued this practice into my adulthood. I didn’t see as much litter on the sides of the roads. In Tennessee, I feel like I see trash on every street, playground, and parking lot; much of the litter is from single-use beverage containers. According to CRI, beverage containers comprise 40-60% of litter.

Image of plastic container art dolphin shaped to represent percentages of plastic containers recycled. — See this and additional plastic art projects by clicking on the image. Photo from CRI

“There are many quantifiable but just as important benefits of increased container recycling: the cleaner roadways, the healthier waterways, the growth in local jobs and green businesses and the satisfaction that we are doing what’s right not only for the planet but for future generations.” –Bottled Up: Beverage Container Recycling Stagnates (2000-2010)¹¹

Solutions

Some companies use greenwashing and ‘sustainability’ to make consumers buy more. However, as long as packaging remains the responsibility of the consumer, we must consume less and buy more consciously. Companies must invest in better packaging and establish Extended Producer Responsibility programs. States must implement Container Deposit Programs to curb the impact of single-use disposable beverages. These systems reduce litter and increase recycling rates. Ultimately, though, ceasing the use of single-use disposable containers is one of the most impactful things we can do for the environment.

Thanks for reading! Here’s a link to the first post in this series in case you missed it. In my next post, I’ll explore companies that are already making recycling and reduction part of their mission.

“If you want to eliminate waste in your life – and in the world – the answers will always come down to one simple thing: consume differently.” -Tom Szaky

Note: There are no affiliate links in this post; all links are for informational purposes only.

Additional Resource:

Publications, Data Archive, Container Recycling Institute, accessed February 28, 2021.

Footnotes:

May 9, 2020May 21, 2023

The Packaging Industry and How We Can Consume Differently, Part 4

Last updated May 21, 2023.

Plastic packaging waste from my household, February 2017. Bottles, fruit container, yogurt cup, plastic bags, etc. — Plastic packaging waste from my household, February 2017. I started doing trash audits, inspired by Beth Terry at myplasticfreelife.com and I realized how much plastic, mostly in the form of packaging, that I had to start eliminating. Photo by Marie Cullis.

In my first article about packaging, I told you about packaging history, current problems with packaging, and greenwashing. I wrote about the misconceptions surrounding the terms biodegradable and compostable in my second article. In my third article, we explored bioplastics. Today, we will look at some other practices companies sometimes use to reduce their carbon footprint.

Image of a footprint with "CO2" over a map of the world — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

Lightweighting

The demand for consumer goods is on the rise, especially with the population exponentially increasing. One way companies save money is to practice lightweighting, and sometimes it can reduce their environmental impact. However, this practice can also be harmful to the environment.

What is lightweighting? “A packaging trend wherein conventional packaging is replaced with a lighter-weight alternative and/or the overall amount of material used in packaging is reduced,” as defined in The Future of Packaging.¹

Lighter weight items are cheaper to ship, saving companies money on fuel which also creates fewer emissions. But creating lighter packaging means replacing conventional packaging, such as glass, with lighter weight alternatives, like plastic. This has made plastic the preferred material and unfortunately, much of that plastic is not recycled.

Another lightweighting method is making the materials thinner. PET bottles and aluminum cans use about 30% less material than they did in the 1980s. Lush Cosmetics worked with their bottling manufacturer to make their bottles 10% thinner, and this saved nearly 13,500 pounds of plastic in 2016.

“Although lightweighting gains have been made for all containers as a result of these technological efficiencies, these gains are overshadowed by huge increases in per capita consumption and total beverage sales (especially for bottled water…sports drinks and energy drinks) as well as stagnant or shrinking recycling rates. All of these factors lead to vastly more container material” not getting recycled. –Bottled Up: Beverage Container Recycling Stagnates²

Convenience Items

Lightweighting makes consumer goods cheaper and easier to access, especially in the form of convenience items. Think about coffee pods, applesauce pouches, and fresh vegetables ready to be steamed in plastic. But at what cost does this convenience come? This packaging is not recyclable in most municipalities and goes straight to landfills. Some can be sent to a specialty recycler, like Terracycle, but that is not a long-term practical solution.

Example of Coffee pod or “K-Cup”. I used these for several years before I realized the harm they were causing.

Example of an applesauce pouch, now also sold as smoothie blends and yogurt pouches. I purchased these for several years before I realized how plastic was damaging our environment.

“This is lightweighting’s biggest problem: no economic recycling model has yet emerged due to the technical challenges in processing and recovering the base materials,” -Chris Daly, Vice President of Environmental Sustainability, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, PepsiCo³

Water

Sales of bottled water, especially in plastic, now exceed those of other non-alcoholic bottled beverages in the US. Here is a graph that exhibits the rapid growth:

A few companies now sell bottled water in aluminum, including the brands Open Water⁴ and CanO Water.⁵ In summer 2019, PepsiCo announced that they would stop selling Bubly seltzer water in plastic bottles and switch to aluminum cans. They also planned to test switching Aquafina to aluminum cans.⁶

Replacing plastic with aluminum can be a positive packaging change. This is not a new idea, as brands like LaCroix water have been in aluminum for years. Aluminum is 100% recyclable, assuming they are free from plastic film lining, and almost 75% of all aluminum produced in the U.S. is still in use today, according to the Aluminum Association.⁷ Recycling aluminum uses significantly less energy because it is heated at a much lower temperature than using bauxite, the virgin raw material used to make aluminum.

However, the real solution is to drink tap water and carry your own reusable metal or glass water container.

“Bottled water is healthy and convenient, but single-use plastic bottles are wreaking havoc on our environment, and especially our oceans.”⁸

Products in Cartons

Great Value Organic 2% milk in a blue, purple, and white carton — Milk carton

Cartons are another example of lightweighting, as the containers are lighter to transport. There are two types: cartons like those that contain milk or orange juice, are paperboard lined with a plastic film (polyethylene). Milk cartons haven’t been wax coated since the 1940s, as noted by Beth Terry.⁹ The other, called aseptic or shelf-stable containers, are multilayered with paperboard, plastic film (polyethylene), and aluminum. Most of the latter are made by the packaging company Tetra Pak. Common examples of products sold in cartons include shelf-stable milk, broth, coconut water, and juice boxes.

However, a carton’s end of life is usually highly problematic because they are multi-layered and it is expensive to separate the materials. In addition, some polyethylenes contain toxins linked to human health problems.

Diagrams of cartons and the layers of materials. — Diagrams from the Carton Council

Recyclability is Poor

Cartons are recyclable in theory, but it is not common, in large part because it is difficult to separate the layers. The recycler shreds the cartons, sanitizes them, and ties the shreds into bales. A pulp mill that has the appropriate machinery can buy the bales from the recycler, and the polyethylene coating must be separated from the paper and strained off. The plastics can be shipped to a plastics manufacturer for re-use, but usually, it is simply disposed of. The shredded cartons can then be reprocessed into pulp for paper.¹⁰ That’s a lot of work for a single type of waste, and most of the time these are landfilled or incinerated.

The Carton Council

The Carton Council advertises cartons as recyclable. However, as attorney and sustainability expert Jennie Romer noted, this is an unqualified claim. The Federal Trade Commission’s definition of recycling requires that an entire package be recyclable to be labeled as such. Cartons are not fully recyclable since the plastic film and aluminum foil layer are usually discarded. “A qualified claim of ‘only the paper layer is recyclable’ would be more accurate.”¹¹

The Carton Council also asserts that if you cannot recycle them where you live, you can ship them at your own cost to certain facilities.¹² However, I cleaned and saved cartons from non-dairy milk and broth for several months and found it cost-prohibitive to ship. I found this discouraging and impractical.

Author Eve O. Schaub also found the Carton Council’s recycling options problematic during her Year Of No Garbage. She wrote: “I didn’t love it, first because any additional level of complexity or cost is going to make it that much less likely for the average person to actually do it, and second because the environmental footprint of mailing boxes of cartons across the country to recycle them seemed to me to raise serious questions about the net environmental impact of the whole endeavor.”¹³

We should avoid buying all products in these containers for both environmental and health reasons. Remember, that even if your local recycler “accepts” these items for recycling, they are often landfilled. The paper in these cartons might break down in the environment but the microplastics and toxins in the plastic will infect the land and water for decades or longer.

Swanson chicken broth in a shelf stable carton — Swanson chicken broth in a shelf-stable carton.

Solutions

We have power as consumers. Companies want to sell us their goods, presumably more than they want to sell us the packaging. So avoid purchasing products in packaging that you don’t like or support.

Instead, purchase items in bulk in your own containers, or buy goods in metal or glass instead of plastic or cartons. Buy a reusable beverage container to avoid buying drinks in plastic and avoid convenience packaging since it is rarely recyclable.

Thanks for reading, and please subscribe! In my next post, I’ll explain how the manufacturers should become part of the solution.

“If you want to eliminate waste in your life – and in the world – the answers will always come down to one simple thing: consume differently.” -Tom Szaky

Footnotes:

January 11, 2019May 21, 2023

How Glass Recycling Can and Should Work: Part 1

Glass is 100% recyclable!

“Ninety-three percent of consumers still expect to be able to recycle glass,” according to a survey by the Glass Recycling Coalition.

In my article about glass recycling in Chattanooga, I learned and shared with you why glass is no longer accepted in curbside recycling. I shared that glass recycled through curbside for about 4 years was not recycled, it was landfilled instead. Last, I solved the mystery of whether or not the glass at the five recycling centers was actually recycled – and it is, by Strategic Materials in Atlanta.

I learned that glass recycling is really complex and difficult to understand. So I am explaining how the system works in general in two parts. I hope it helps you understand!

Inside of the green glass recycling dumpster with lots of wine bottles. — Green glass recycling dumpster with lots of wine bottles. Photo by Marie Cullis.

“Recycling glass saves one-quarter to one-third the energy over virgin materials production.” -Daniel Imhoff, Paper or Plastic

Recycling happens when it is profitable

First, you have to realize that waste management and recycling are businesses. BIG businesses. The solid waste industry in the U.S. is a $17 billion per year industry and expected to increase to $25 billion by 2024.

So it comes down to money. Economics. Seems like all things do! I thought for years that it happened because it was the right thing to do for the environment.

Nope. Recycling happens because recycling makes money.

How glass is collected

It starts with you and me, the consumer. We clean and sort the glass, and recycle it through their local Solid Waste Division of the city or municipality where we reside.

In a single-stream recycling system, meaning a system in which all recyclables go into one blue bin, the materials are sent to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) for sorting. A MRF’s primary function is to sort materials, decide what to do with those materials, and then sell and transfer them. Here’s a quick youtube video to give you a visual understanding:

How does this arrangement come to be? A city, local government, or municipality asks for and receives bids for waste management. A MRF is awarded the contract and often a hauling company as well; they are usually funded through property taxes. WestRock is the MRF for Chattanooga as well as many other municipalities in the Southeast U.S.

Almost all municipalities pay a MRF to handle and sort their recycling. Then the MRF sorts the materials through a complex system (the process varies by company), and then they sell the materials for a profit. The primary markets for recyclable glass containers are the 75 glass container manufacturing plants in
the United States.

Sometimes, as in Chattanooga since January 2018, glass is not collected curbside. It must be taken to one of the five recycling centers, and that type of recycling is known as dual-stream recycling – materials are separated into specified bins by the consumer.

Glass is transported

Glass gets sent to a glass recycling company or glass manufacturer. The glass collected from dual-stream recycling goes straight to the glass recycling company. In our case, that is Strategic Materials, the largest glass recycling company in North America. In single-stream systems, the MRF separates the glass and sells it to a glass recycling company or manufacturer. (Single stream recycling has a lot of issues, especially with glass. I’ll cover that in Part 2.)

There are forty-six glass manufacturers in the U.S., and often glass must be transported across state lines for recycling. Some large cities with lively nightlife do not collect glass, such as New Orleans and Nashville. “Municipalities choosing to go without glass point to the cost of hauling a material with low market value as the reason, but other industry folks argue that the market for glass is not the problem. They consider the problem to be collection and assert that, if glass could be collected in ways that reduce its role as a contaminant, then we would see greater success with the material,” writes Beth Porter in Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine.

How glass is recycled

Glass is broken down and ground into cullet. Cullet and recycled glass melt at lower furnace temperatures than virgin (or new) glass ingredients, which saves energy. This also reduces carbon dioxide emissions. The Glass Recycling Coalition states: “Glass recycling helps to preserve limited natural resources by reducing raw material use, reduces energy consumption as recycled glass melts at lower temperatures than raw materials, saves money on reduced landfill tons, and reduces air emissions.” The Glass Packaging Institute adds that glass recycling “extends the life of plant equipment, such as furnaces,” another cost savings.

The technology for recycling glass just keeps getting better too. Watch this short NPR segment about it:

Unlike a plastic bottle, a glass bottle can become another glass bottle!

How Glass Recycling Should Work

Demonstrated in the following two infographics from the Glass Recycling Coalition is how the system should work when the recycling loop is not broken (meaning when the glass is not deposited into landfills):

It seems so simple!

“Any use of recovered glass saves resources,” said Luke Truman of Allagash Brewing & the Glass Recycling Coalition.

Glass Recycling Proponents

The Glass Recycling Coalition(GRC), a non-profit, “brings together a diverse membership of companies and organizations to make glass recycling work: glass manufacturers, haulers, processors, materials recovery facilities, capital markets, end markets and brands that use glass to showcase their products.” They formed in 2016. Strategic Materials is a member. They also encourage MRF’s to become members. (WestRock is not a listed member, however.)

The Glass Packaging Institute (GPI) is a trade association representing the North American glass container industry. “GPI promotes glass as the optimal packaging choice, advances environmental and recycling policies, advocates industry standards, and educates packaging professionals.” They have an additional website called upgradetoglass.com, and it promotes the switch to glass over other materials because it is safer and does not leach toxins into food and beverages. They have a section called “Why Choose Glass as Part of a Healthy Lifestyle” that I recommend you read!

The Container Recycling Institute (CRI) promotes the bottled beverage deposit system, called the Deposit Return System. In some states, this system charges the consumer a deposit fee of 5 or 10 cents. When the consumer returns that bottle for recycling, they get their money back. In some places, this includes glass, plastic, and aluminum bottles and cans. A Wall Street Journal article noted that “an average of around 63% of glass containers are recycled” in the 10 participating states. But states that don’t have deposit programs only have a glass recycling rate at around 24%.

Tennessee does not participate in the deposit system. However, there is currently a proposal called the Tennessee Bottle Bill Project.

There are additional uses for glass

On top of recycling glass to make new glass containers, there are many other uses for glass. MSW Management Weekly highlighted some of these uses, which are often referred to as secondary markets. They include road construction, either on the surface called “glassphalt” or as a road base aggregate.

Recycled glass in aggregate - isn't that pretty? Photo from Schneppa Glass. — Recycled glass in aggregate – isn’t that pretty? Photo from Schneppa Glass.

Recycled glass is also used as filler aggregate in storm drain and French drain systems. Other markets and uses include the fiberglass industry; glass beads for reflective paints; abrasives; foam glass; and other building materials – even countertops!

Recycled glass countertops and backsplash by Vetrazzo, a recycled glass surface company in California. How gorgeous!

Obviously, there are lots of uses for glass.

There is a huge market for glass and so many uses for it. But if you search the internet for information about glass recycling, you’ll find many stories about different municipalities that no longer accept glass in their recycling system. The claim that there is limited or no market for recycled glass is not true. There is a huge market for it.

So why is this system breaking down? What problems are preventing recycling? That’s what I’ll be covering in Part 2. Thank you for reading!

Additional Resource:

Article, “Glass Recycling 101: Jars, Glass Cups and Wine Bottles,” Wine Cellar Innovations, accessed January 10, 2021.