Beverage Container Recycling Report Released at NRC Expo

Danielle Jackson

Seattle -- At the National Recycling Coalition's (NRC) annual convention this week, Businesses and Environmentalists Allied for Recycling (BEAR) released its "Understanding Beverage Container Recycling: A Value Chain Assessment," report that suggests the country may be able to double the recycling of beverage containers while saving money.

BEAR is a task force that includes including representatives from major beverage and container producers, Houston-based Waste Management Inc., and local and state governments.

The report states that when deposit systems are designed to use revenues from the sale of recycled materials and unredeemed deposits, the revenues significantly offset program costs. The report suggests working with the beverage container and recycling industries to create a modified deposit/return proposal and to improve existing deposit systems.

An ultimate goal of BEAR-member the GrassRoots Recycling Network (GRRN), Athens, Ga., and the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), Washington, D.C., is to introduce a "bottle bill" to unify beverage container recycling throughout the United States.