More and more waste from PET bottles

The sales of PET bottles have grown very strongly since the beginning of the century, for more and more beverages and in more and more sizes. The number of discarded PET bottles is now a multiple of the number in the year 2000, both for small bottles of less than 1 litre and for large bottles. This is bad for our environment, mainly due to the incineration of those plastic bottles and the millions of bottles that end up in litter.

Policy for small beverage bottles

Since the 1990s, numerous agreements have been made by the government with the responsible companies to reduce the environmental damage caused by PET bottles. The agreements were not complied with, and neither was subsequent legislation. The government did not impose any consequences and failed to enforce them. Meanwhile, the volume of PET bottles sold has continued to rise steadily to about four times as many as in the year 2000.

Policy for large beverage bottles

Ten years ago, the Dutch government, unlike the German government, chose to allow soft drink producers to replace their reusable bottles with single-use bottles. As a result, the volume of waste from large PET bottles is now more than six times larger than in the year 2000.

Nine frequently asked questions 

Are plastic beverage bottles only made of PET?

Are all plastic beverage bottles made of PET?

Is there a deposit on all large plastic beverage bottles?

Is the annual consumption of large and small PET bottles really growing that strongly?

What exactly is the situation with this rapidly growing use of PET bottles?

How could the total amount of PET bottle waste have grown so enormously?

Why did environmental policy for small PET bottles fail?

Aren't those PET bottles getting lighter and lighter?

In which waste streams do discarded PET bottles end up?

Opinion of Recycling Netwerk

The enormous growth in the annual volume of small PET bottles sold causes an unacceptable increase in the amount of discarded bottles that must be cleaned up or collected and incinerated.

Environmental policy has completely failed to limit the negative consequences of discarding empty PET bottles; despite all agreements, both the volume of bottle waste and the clean-up costs for small bottles in particular have not decreased but increased.

Introduction of a mandatory deposit system for all (large and small) plastic beverage bottles is a necessary part of an environmentally responsible and cost-effective approach to this bottle waste.

The abolition of the reusable plastic beverage bottle must be reversed.

1. Are plastic beverage bottles only made of PET?

PET is a type of plastic that is increasingly used for packaging due to the useful properties of the polymer Polyethylene Terephthalate. Following PET bottles, numerous other PET packaging has become common, from fruit trays to pots for cosmetics. Increasingly, PET bottles are also used for products other than beverages. Years ago, for example, Unilever's BlueBand butter was no longer in greaseproof paper, but in a PET bottle. Meanwhile, we can find many other PET bottles on the shelves, filled with olive oil, detergents, vinegar, shampoo, or whatnot. This means that the PET stream sorted out after mixed plastic collection is much more diverse than after deposit collection: it can contain many different product residues (including non-food) and other polymer additives. Such a mixed stream of PET or PET bottles is worth less to recyclers because it is harder to process and is less permitted and suitable for the production of food packaging and bottle-to-bottle recycling.

2. Are all plastic beverage bottles made of PET?

No, plastic beverage bottles for dairy drinks, juice, and juice drinks are often made of other plastics such as polyolefins and polystyrene.

More than 99% of plastic bottles for soft drinks and waters are PET bottles. In contrast, more than 95% of plastic packaging for dairy drinks is not made of PET, while for juices and juice drinks, 30% of plastic bottles are made of HDPE or PP.

3. Is there a deposit on all large plastic beverage packaging?

No, a deposit is only mandatory for large plastic bottles for soft drinks and waters. Dairy drinks in particular are often sold in plastic bottles/jerry cans without a deposit. This involves nearly 100 million HDPE bottles, 5 million LDPE bottles, and 6 million PC bottles of 1 litre or more. In addition, more than 10 million large plastic bottles containing juice or juice drinks are sold without a deposit. These are also mainly HDPE jerry cans. At the beginning of 2006, legislation was introduced mandating 95% collection and recycling of all large plastic beverage packaging. This could actually only be achieved with a deposit system. However, this legislation is no

The sales of PET bottles have grown very strongly since the beginning of the century, for more and more beverages and in more and more sizes. The number of discarded PET bottles is now a multiple of the number in the year 2000, both for small bottles of less than 1 litre and for large bottles. This is bad for our environment, mainly due to the incineration of those plastic bottles and the millions of bottles that end up in litter.

Policy for small beverage bottles

Since the 1990s, numerous agreements have been made by the government with the responsible companies to reduce the environmental damage caused by PET bottles. The agreements were not complied with, and neither was subsequent legislation. The government did not impose any consequences and failed to enforce them. Meanwhile, the volume of PET bottles sold has continued to rise steadily to about four times as many as in the year 2000.

Policy for large beverage bottles

Ten years ago, the Dutch government, unlike the German government, chose to allow soft drink producers to replace their reusable bottles with single-use bottles. As a result, the volume of waste from large PET bottles is now more than six times larger than in the year 2000.

Nine frequently asked questions

Are plastic beverage bottles only made of PET?

Are all plastic beverage bottles made of PET?

Is there a deposit on all large plastic beverage bottles?

Is the annual consumption of large and small PET bottles really growing that strongly?

What exactly is the situation with this rapidly growing use of PET bottles?

How could the total amount of PET bottle waste have grown so enormously?

Why did environmental policy for small PET bottles fail?

Aren't those PET bottles getting lighter and lighter?

In which waste streams do discarded PET bottles end up?

Opinion of Recycling Netwerk

The enormous growth in the annual volume of small PET bottles sold causes an unacceptable increase in the amount of discarded bottles that must be cleaned up or collected and incinerated.

Environmental policy has completely failed to limit the negative consequences of discarding empty PET bottles; despite all agreements, both the volume of bottle waste and the clean-up costs for small bottles in particular have not decreased but increased.

Introduction of a mandatory deposit system for all (large and small) plastic beverage bottles is a necessary part of an environmentally responsible and cost-effective approach to this bottle waste.

The abolition of the reusable plastic beverage bottle must be reversed.

1. Are plastic beverage bottles only made of PET?

PET is a type of plastic that is increasingly used for packaging due to the useful properties of the polymer PolyEthyleneTerephthalate. Following PET bottles, numerous other PET packaging has become common, from fruit trays to pots for cosmetics. Increasingly, PET bottles are also used for products other than beverages. Years ago, for example, Unilever's BlueBand butter was no longer in greaseproof paper, but in a PET bottle. Meanwhile, we can find many other PET bottles on the shelves, filled with olive oil, detergents, vinegar, shampoo, or whatnot. This means that the PET stream sorted out after mixed plastic collection is much more diverse than after deposit collection: it can contain many different product residues (including non-food) and other polymer additives. Such a mixed stream of PET or PET bottles is worth less to recyclers because it is harder to process and is less permitted and suitable for the production of food packaging and bottle-to-bottle recycling.

2. Are all plastic beverage bottles made of PET?

No, plastic beverage bottles for dairy drinks, juice, and juice drinks are often made of other plastics such as polyolefins and polystyrene.

More than 99% of plastic bottles for soft drinks and waters are PET bottles. In contrast, more than 95% of plastic packaging for dairy drinks is not made of PET, while for juices and juice drinks, 30% of plastic bottles are made of HDPE or PP.

3. Is there a deposit on all large plastic beverage packaging?

No, a deposit is only mandatory for large plastic bottles for soft drinks and waters. Dairy drinks in particular are often sold in plastic bottles/jerry cans without a deposit. This involves nearly 100 million HDPE bottles, 5 million LDPE bottles, and 6 million PC bottles of 1 litre or more. In addition, more than 10 million large plastic bottles containing juice or juice drinks are sold without a deposit. These are also mainly HDPE jerry cans. At the beginning of 2006, legislation was introduced mandating 95% collection and recycling of all large plastic beverage packaging. This could actually only be achieved with a deposit system. However, this legislation was never enforced, and at the end of 2010, the relevant articles were scrapped from the Packaging Decree.

4. Is the annual consumption of large and small PET bottles really growing that strongly?

At the beginning of this century, fewer than 1 billion PET bottles were used annually to bring beverages onto the Dutch market. Since then, the use of these PET bottles has increased by more than 50%, mainly due to the huge increase in the use of small PET bottles without a deposit. Of the total of more than 1.5 billion PET bottles last year, the majority were bottles for soft drinks (over 60%), waters (approx. 25%), and juice/juice drinks (over 10%).

The figure below shows the development of the sales of these bottles with and without a deposit: due to the rise of small bottles, more PET bottles without a deposit have been sold for several years than large PET bottles with a deposit.

5. What exactly is the situation with this rapidly growing use of PET bottles?

The consumption of PET bottles has increased since the beginning of the century from less than 200 million units in the year 2000 to more than 800 million units in 2013. These are mainly half-litre bottles: having quintupled in number since 2000, they now make up nearly 80% of small PET bottles.

The table below provides a historical overview of the consumption of PET bottles for different beverages and in different sizes, based on figures from market research firm Canadean.

6. How could the total amount of PET bottle waste have grown so enormously?

In addition to the increasing sales of PET bottles, the abolition of reusable bottles has led to a more than fivefold increase in the number of discarded bottles since 2000. The figure below shows the development of the number of discarded bottles.

Explanatory note:

Although the quantity of large PET bottles sold annually has decreased by over 15% since the year 2000, the amount of waste from these bottles has increased significantly. The reason is that the large reusable deposit bottles have been replaced by single-use bottles. Around the turn of the century, the German government fought a major (including legal) battle over this with the companies involved, after which deposit legislation was eventually introduced. Shortly afterwards, the Dutch government did agree to the abolition of the reusable plastic bottle in exchange for a commitment to environmental compensation. Since 2006, therefore, large PET bottles are no longer refilled. The bottles are n

The current single-use bottles are indeed a lot lighter than the reusable bottles, but that does not offset the

7. Why did environmental policy for small PET bottles fail?

The packaging policy of the past 20 years has a recurring pattern that can be characterised in three words: agreement → broken promise → postponement → agreement → broken promise …