- 50 shades of plastic bottles -
20/11/2021
Drinking water in bottles is something that has existed since the end of the 19th's century, but plastic bottles made their appearance in the 60's with the plastic boom. PET plastic really invaded the market in the 90's.
But what is PET?
​
PET means polyethene terephthalate, it is what composes plastic bottles nowadays and it is one of the most recyclable plastics we know.
9,3 billion litres of bottled water are sold each year, and France is the 5th consumer, 31 000 plastic bottles are sold per year and 25 000 are thrown away...
Even if this plastic is easily recyclable, to date, its ability isn't exploited enough. Nowadays, only 58% of plastic bottles are recycled in France (Citeo). This figure increases more and more each year.
With its ambitious personality, France wants to reach 100% of recycling by 2025, but it is really late in comparison to Germany, Finland or Denmark which already reached 90%!
PLASTIC WASTE...Who will win the title of pollution evil?
​
In 2021, 440 clean walks took place in 45 countries, gathering 2400 associations and more than 11 000 volunteers. The movement was called "Break free from plastic"
In total, 330 000 pieces of plastic were collected and out of these pieces, 58% were allowed to identify a brand.
From the identified plastic pieces, a top 10 of shame was established.
And the winner is…..COCA COLA!
With 19 800 wastes shared in 39 countries, the famous soda brand is THE champion of plastic pollution!
In the second place, with 8 200 wastes shared in 35 countries, thanks to applause PepsiCo, the eternal rival of Coca-Cola! Coincidence..?
It is still half less waste than Coca Cola but it is not insignificant for all that.
At 3rd, 4th and 5th rank, shared in 30 countries each, let's greet Unilever with 6 100 wastes, Nestlé with 4 100 wastes and P&G with 1 900 wastes!
And in the five next places, we have Mondeléz, Philip Morris, Danone, Mars and Colgate-Palmolive, shared between 28 and 22 countries.
​
How are plastic bottles recycled?
​
First, they go through selecting centres where they are sorted once again according to the king of plastic material they are composed of. Then, they are crushed into plastic flakes. Nowadays, some societies are able to produce PET plastic recycled at 99,96% like SUEZ for example.
All these plastic flakes can be transformed into textiles like wadding or some polyester fibres, housing material such as carpet, stuffed toys, pipes, flower pots… and transport material like seat garniture, carpets and a lot of items in the automobile area.
Recycling plastic bottles, yes, but what for?
​
In an era of excessive consumption, giving a new breath to plastics is an important issue if we don’t want to drain our planet. Plastics are guzzlers in terms of oil resources, indeed, producing only one plastic bottle requires 100 mL of oil, 80 g of coal, 42 L of gas and 2 L of water! Counterproductive, don’t you think so? Recycling plastics would also allow us to reduce our energy consumption by 80 to 90 % around the plastic industry! In relation to this energy consumption, plastic production generates 2 billion tons of CO2.
And we are not even talking about the damages on the marine fauna and flora, AwaRenness magazine talks about it in its last volume!
​
If you need ideas on how to reuse or recycle your old plastic bottles, sleeping in your cupboards, you can click here!
Resources:
[1] https://www.recygo.fr/blog/dossier/recyclage-bouteilles-plastiques
​
​
[3] AwaRenness magazine
​