U.S. beverage bottles are recycled

Recycling of packaging containers in the United States has achieved remarkable results. According to data recently released by the American Bottle Recycling Institute, in the United States, a total of 192.5 billion bottles, including aluminum, plastics, and glass, were produced in the United States with a recycling rate of approximately 41%.

In the United States, about 648 cans of beverages are consumed per person per year, of which some are recycled and about 114 billion cans are wasted. In spite of this, the recovered portion still enabled the United States to save energy equivalent to 32 million barrels of crude oil. This joint investigation conducted by government agencies, environmental organizations, and enterprises included statistics on production, application, and recycling of aluminum cans, polyester bottles, high-density polyethylene bottles, and glass bottles in the United States. The report shows that the number of aluminum cans in the United States is twice that of polyester bottles. According to forecast, in the next few years, the number of beverage cans will increase at a rate of 25%, of which the growth is mainly due to polyester bottles. This adds technical difficulties to recycling. The report pointed out that if there is a new recycling plan introduced by the country, the recovery rate of beverage cans will show an upward trend and reach a new level in the future.