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TRU’s Environmental Advisory Committee Submission to the Evidence Based Review of Beverage

Containers.

March 20th 2013

Prepared by Susan Purdy (Lecturer, Department of Biological Sciences) and Jennifer Lam (Student,

Department of Natural Resources Science)

Introduction

Evaluating the environmental effects of the choice of consumer products available to us on an everyday

basis can be challenging and the selection of beverage containers is no different. Typically there are

three main choices that consumers can choose from when purchasing a one-serving beverage: a plastic

container made of polyethylene terephtalate (PET), an aluminum can or a glass bottle. Which is the best

choice environmentally?

There are many conflicting pieces of information that need to be sorted through in order to make an

informed choice. To begin with, what is meant by ‘environmentally’ friendly? There are many

benchmarks by which to measure the effect a certain product can have on the environment. Some

methodologies report these key environmental impacts as a ‘carbon footprint’ (a certain volume of

carbon dioxide or CO2 equivalents) or as a ‘global warming potential’ (GWP). Some methodologies

report the amount of energy used – this could be reported in mega joules (Mj) or in Btu’s, or as ‘primary

energy demand’ (PED); and some methodologies go even further and calculate these parameters as well

as the consumption of water, other noxious air emissions such as nitrous oxides (N0x), sulfur oxides (S0x)

etc., and also waterborne and solid waste volumes (Bersimis and Georakellos, 2013).

The total environmental impact of a certain product is typically measured by a detailed life cycle

assessment (LCA) which tabulates the emissions generated and energy used by each phase of its life-

cycle. In order to standardize LCAs many studies use the methodology laid out by the International

Organization for Standardization, which is ISO 1404: 2006’s definition -- “ a LCA must consider the entire

life-cycle of a product, from raw material extraction and acquisition, through energy and material

production and manufacturing to use and end of life treatment and final disposal”. As such a LCA

provides a consistent basis for comparisons between consumer products based on the environmental

consequences associated with each of them (Bersimis and Georakellos, 2013).

The LCA of a beverage container follows its product from ‘cradle to grave’ and typically includes all the

following sub-components:

raw materials acquisition and material manufacture

raw material transit to the point of fabrication

container fabrication

container transportation to the point of filling

filling and final product production

final product transportation to retail outlets

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final product use (i.e. storage and refrigeration)

solid waste collection and transportation to landfills

used container collection and re-filling

re-cycling

PET manufacturing , fabrication and transportation

The raw material used to manufacture PET beverage containers are oil/petroleum. Production follows a

standardized series of processes including: manufacturing, labeling, filling and sealing,

transport/distribution, and cooling. The most energy intensive processes lie in manufacturing and

transporting the PET beverage containers no matter the content inside.

PET beverage containers are produced by a process of combining ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid

resulting in small pellets of PET resin. This primary process requires an energy input of 70-83MJkg-1

(Gleick and Cooley 2009). The variation is to account for size or girth of the pellet. These rice-sized

pellets are then melted and injected into a beverage container mold complete with reseal able cap. This

secondary process requires an additional 20MJkg-1 of energy (Gleick and Cooley 2009). It should be

noted that the PET material itself, is impregnated with energy thus the two energy figures given above

are additional energy required to transform PET into the physical beverage container. This initial

production of PET containers requires not only substantial energy inputs but raw materials in the form

of oil as well. Simply producing the beverage containers demands 50 million barrels of oil per year

worldwide and also fossil fuels to transport the raw materials to the manufacturing plant (Gleick and

Cooley 2009).

Transportation energy figures are far more ambiguous in calculation as there are plentiful variations to

take into account. Taking a look at PET bottled water, there is a fundamental dichotomy branching into

either municipal (purified) water or spring water. Municipal water is typically within a close vicinity of

the bottling plant, usually to be delivered within 200km. This method incurs an energy cost of 1.4MJ1-1

(Gleick and Cooley 2009). In contrast, spring water bottling plants are located at specific, single sources

and must be transported significant distances to reach the desired market. This incurs an energy cost of

4.0MJ1-1, an almost four time increase from the municipal water (Gleick and Cooley 2009). There is also

transportation costs pertaining to transferring raw materials to manufacturing plants, to bottling sites

and finally to the market place. Filling, labeling, sealing, transporting (to the market place) and cooling

account for 6.22MJ1-1 of the energy costs needed in PET beverage container production (Gleick and

Cooley 2009). Although this research reflects on the PET beverage containers specific to bottled water,

the processes of manufacturing, filling, labeling, sealing and transportation apply to any beverage type.

In regards to emissions released into the environment following this production process, in 2007,

manufacturing PET beverage containers sold in British Columbia generated 15, 754, 979kg of CO2e. Total

emissions from the transportation stages are calculated between 756, 506kg and 994, 903kg of CO2 and

the treatment and filling of the containers produced 16, 722kg of CO2e. This adds up to a sum total of

approximately 16, 766, 604kg of CO2e emissions (Griffin 2009). To put this into perspective, this would

be the amount required to heat the average Canadian home for the next 2,177 years (Griffin 2009).

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Life cycle assessment comparisons of beverage containers

A life cycle inventory (LCI) of three single-single serving soft drink containers was undertaken by Franklin

Associates (2009) for the PET Resin Association. They compared a 12-ounce aluminum can, 8-ounce

glass bottle and a 20-ounce PET bottle and used the functional unit of the amount of each needed to

package 100,000 ounces of soft drink (which were 8,333 aluminum cans, 12,500 glass bottles, and 5,000

PET bottles). This may be why the results for their analysis are very unfavorable towards glass bottles,

with the glass bottles requiring 26.6 million Btu of energy and 4,848 lbs. of CO2 equivalents, compared

to aluminum cans at 16.0 million Btu and 2,766 lbs. of C02 equivalents, and PET bottles requiring 11.0

million Btu and producing only 1,125 lbs. C02 equivalents. The report does say they used aluminum can

and glass bottle recycling rates from a 2007 EPA report for the US, but not what those rates are.

Traditionally, recycle rates in the US are much lower, in the 25% range, than for Canada.

In a lifecycle analysis done by Franklin Associates, a singular PET bottle of 20.3g generates 96g of

greenhouse gases; this is close to four times the actual weight of the bottle itself. This number appears

as generous as it does not account for the emissions incurred with water treatment, filling, labeling or

sealing (Griffin 2009). To compare these figures of emissions and energy demand in the production of

PET beverage containers to glass containers, glass fairs on the conservative side. Primary energy

demand for the manufacturing of a glass beverage container is reported at 16.6MJ/kg of glass and a

global warming potential of 1.25 kg CO2/kg of glass (Vellini 2009).

A complete LCA of the impacts of the carbonated soft drink industry was recently conducted in the

United Kingdom by Amienyo et al. (2013). Their analysis was conducted from ‘cradle to grave’ for

different containers – glass bottles (0.75 l), aluminum cans (0.33l) and PET bottles (0.5 l) and they used

the ISO 1404/44 LCA methodologies. They found that the containers themselves accounted for 59-77%

of the environmental impact and the ingredients only between 7 to 14% (mostly from the sugar

industry). The highest greenhouse warming potential was from the glass container at 555 g CO2

equivalent per lire of drink, followed by the aluminum can at 312 g C02 eq./l drink, and the lowest for

the 0.5 l PET bottle at 293 g CO2 eq./l of drink.

Based on this information alone, it seems that glass containers are the least environmentally friendly

choices, and PET bottles the best. Returning to the Amienyo (2013) analysis though, the authors do

state that by re-using the glass bottles only once the GWP would be reduced by 40%, and if a glass

bottle was used three times the GWP of drinks packaged in glass would be comparable to a 0.5 l PET

bottle. For their analysis they used the current situation in the UK where 35% of glass bottles are

manufactured from recycled glass, but they did not have any information of how much of the PET

content was recycled, so they assumed it was made from virgin plastic.

Another comparison of beverage containers by Vellini and Savioli (2009) was done in Italy where they

applied ISO 1404 standard methodologies to the production of glass containers and compared them to

PET containers. They made the observation that when the production of 1 kg of material, both glass and

PET, was compared, glass performed much better than PET, but the opposite is true if the data referred

to the per unit volume of the container. This is because glass containers are so much heavier than PET

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containers. The amount of PET required for a 1 liter container is 0.030 kg compared to 0.66kg for glass.

They compared the environmental burdens of the two types of containers for a wide range of

environmental parameters, including global warming equivalents for 100 years of emissions of CO2, CH4,

N20, N0x, C0, S0x, VOC, acidification, photochemical smog and tropospheric ozone formation among

others. Their analysis showed that even though on a per unit basis PET containers outperform glass

containers, there is potential for recycling material in glass containers by using scrap glass which would

reduce emissions due to lower energy consumption; and that such benefits are not currently available

for recycling PET containers. They then performed calculations to determine at what percentage of

recycled glass in a container would these environmental emissions equal that of a PET container, and

they found this threshold was at 25% recycled glass content. They then went on to say that the benefits

of recycled content increased up until about the 80% range, and then the benefits leveled off.

A study done recently in Greece by Bersimis and Geogakellos (2013) examined the effects of aluminum

cans (0.33 l), glass bottles (0.25 l) and a range of sizes of PET bottles on five ecological parameters –

consumption of energy, consumption of water, air emissions as a critical volume of air, waterborne

waste as a critical volume of water and solid waste. The goal of this research was to develop a useful

tool to aid in the assessment of the environmental performances of products in a LCA called ‘Principal

Component Analysis. Their numbers for the effects of each type of container on these environmental

parameters are the opposite of the previous studies mentioned. They showed that a PET (0.33 l) bottle

has the highest consumption of energy at 27.33 MJ/ l, aluminum cans at 23.9 MJ/ l and glass bottles at

10.4 MJ/l, and that PET bottles had the highest level of emissions (2,106 m3/l) compared to glass bottles

(1,671 m3/l). However they did not specify the recycled content of any of the containers.

As it can be seen the results from these various life cycle analyses can be hard to interpret and compare,

due to the many different parameters at each stage of a product’s life cycle that an analysis may use.

For example, how much recycled content is in each container? Has this been factored into the analysis?

What is the re-use rate for each container? A LCA of North American container glass by Owen-Illinois Inc.

(O-I) in 2010 undertook a comprehensive global study of the complete life cycle of glass containers.

They argue that LCA methodologies are widely inconsistent due to variation in data measurement and

the completeness of the LCA, and there should be a consistent platform on which to compare “apples to

apples” in consumer goods and packaging. They suggest that LCA’s use instead a “cradle to cradle’

approach which take into account the impacts of re-use and re-cycling. Other factors in a products life-

cycle also make comparison difficult from region to region. For example, what is the energy source

being used in production, transport etc.? Where is the location of raw material extraction and

processing? How far is this from the final use of the product? Also what is the end of life treatment and

final disposal of the product? Is this being taken into account in the LCA?

The Owen-Illinois (2010) analysis included the LCA of glass containers in different geographic locations

around the globe including North America (Michigan area), Brazil, Italy and Australia. This LCA showed

that in all locations glass containers had the most favourable carbon footprint, including the results for

North America at 0.171 kg C02 per containers compared to aluminum at 0.401 kg C02 and PET at 0.214 kg

C02 per container. Their analysis included recycled glass content, and they found that for 10% of

recycled glass used in production cuts carbon emissions by 5% and reduces energy use by 3%. They note

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that glass bottles can be refilled up to 30 times, and in Latin America and Western Europe refillables

represent over 60% and 35% of the market respectively. Their analysis also use recycled content at a

rate of 25% for glass, 43% for aluminum and 2% for PET in North America.

Beverage container use and recycle rates in Canada

Plastic beverage container sales in British Columbia have been steadily rising with a total of 478 million

plastic beverage containers (mainly PET) being sold in 2007, almost double the amount sold in 2002

(Encorp Pacific data). Canadian recycling rates over the past decade have shown to be considerably

higher than that of the US. Collectively, Canadian provinces in 2010 had a recovery rate of 73-75% of

aluminum cans, 80-83% of non-refillable glass, and 58-62% of PET plastic beverage bottles (CM

Consulting 2012). In comparison, British Columbia in the same year had recovery rates of 89% of

aluminum cans, 93% of non-refillable glass, and 78% of PET bottles. Further, glass beverage containers

in Canada contain approximately 50% recycled content, however it is not known exactly what the

recycled content of PET beverage containers actually is as there are no figures in any academic

literature. The Canadian Beverage Associate writes in a letter to President Shaver and the Board of

Governors (November 19th, 2012), that “PET bottles can be repeatedly recycled and re-used to produce

new PET bottles in a very energy efficient manner.” However, this does not specify how much recycled

content PET bottles in Canada actually contain even if this process is carried out. In the same letter, it is

reported that on average, producing a PET bottle from recycled PET plastic utilizes 70% less energy,

though this statistic proves inconsistent with the CM Consulting report (2012) which states only 30% of

the energy is saved. The number of plastic beverage containers, which ended up in BC landfills increased

by 247% from the year 2002 to 2007. Encorp Pacific reported over 130 million unredeemed plastic

bottles, which either ended up in landfills or as environmental waste.

Clearly recycle rates for beverage containers in Canada, and British Columbia in particular, are very high.

This is admirable, but it does not mean that recycled beverage containers end up as beverage containers

again. The terminology surrounding plastics recycling can be quite confusing, but the term ‘closed-loop’

recycling refers to primary recycling where the product is mechanically reprocessed into a product with

the same properties, and ‘downgrading’ refers to secondary recycling where the product is mechanically

reprocessed into products requiring lower properties. There is also tertiary recycling where the

chemical constituents are recovered and quaternary recycling where the energy is recovered (Hopewell

2009).

Glass beverage containers are infinitely recyclable, manufactured using all natural ingredients (sand,

soda ash, limestone, recycled glass), and the only FDA packaging material recognized as GRAS (Generally

Recognized as Safe). Glass beverage containers are recycled in a closed loop system meaning they are

recycled into the same product again. This process also recycles glass back into its original use without

the loss of material quality or purity (The Glass Packaging Institute 2010).

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PET plastics, along with other types of thermoplastics do have a high potential to be mechanically

recycled (includes both primary and secondary types of recycling). There are estimates of the net

benefit of PET bottle recycling being 1.5 tons of C02 per ton of recycled PET (Hopewell, 2009). However,

it is not clear what percentage of PET plastic is actually recycled back into new PET bottles. While there

are no concrete figures for the amount of recycled content in PET beverage containers in our

jurisdiction, we can encourage the beverage industry to be more open in reporting this figure, and also

strongly encourage them to increase the recycled content of their containers as the environmental

benefits are clear.

Both glass and aluminum containers contain significant amounts of recycled content, 50% in glass

containers and 68% in aluminum (CM Consulting, 2012). This same report also states that manufacturing

glass from recycled glass uses 35% less energy than making glass from raw materials, and using recycled

aluminum instead of virgin ore in cans uses 95% less energy.

Plastics in the environment

LCAs do not take into account the long term environment impacts of plastics. Most types of plastics are

not biodegradable (Andrady 1994) which is not surprising as their usefulness and qualities are based on

their durability. Plastics have only really been manufactured for the mass market for the last 60 years,

and it is estimated that plastic materials may persist in the environment for decades, if not millennia

(Hopewell 2009). As a result, considerable amounts of plastics are accumulating in landfills and in the

natural environment. It has been estimated that plastics account for around 10% by weight of the

municipal waste stream (Barns 2009). Other landfill products often can degrade in the presence of

microorganisms to produce useable biogenic methane, but plastics cannot.

Of course, not all un-recycled plastic containers end up in landfills, as some are discarded into the

environment. While this may not seem to be a large problem in British Columbia as compared to other

regions of the world, it does not mean we are immune to plastic debris, and also we do have an

extensive marine environment close to some of our densest human populations. Barnes et al. (2009)

reported that plastics represent a considerable proportion of shore-line debris at between 50 to 80%.

Not only are plastics unsightly but they can cause real harm to marine organisms, including

entanglement, ingestion, suffocation and general debilitation (Murray 2009). The first reported harm

plastics can do to organisms was from the carcasses of seabirds collected on shorelines in the early

1960’s in New Zealand (Thompson et al. 2009) Plastic debris has since become ubiquitous in the marine

environment around the globe from pole to pole, and massive gyres of debris, including plastics has

been identified in the Pacific (Thompson et al. 2009).

An area of increasing concern is the abundance of small plastic fragments (microplastics) that is a result

of degradation of larger plastic objects, that can be as small as 1.6 um (just for comparison, this is

smaller than many bacteria). These are mistaken for food by marine invertebrates, including filter

feeders, deposit feeders and detritovores. The long-term consequence of this on marine food webs is

not fully known, but there is also concern in regards to the potential for transfer of toxic substances into

the food chain by this method, including PCBs, organ-chloride pesticides and other persistent organic

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pollutants (POPs). Some of these compounds are added to plastics in their manufacture and some

absorb to the plastic debris once it is in the environment (Thompson et al. 2009). A very recent article in

Nature (Rochman. et al 2013) points out that 280 million tons of plastic was produced globally in 2012,

but less than half was landfilled or recycled. They argue that plastic debris should be classified as

hazardous waste and not as solid waste; due to the harm such plastic waste is doing to the environment.

In an analysis the authors found that at least 78% of priority pollutants listed by the EPA and 61% listed

by the European Union are associated with plastic debris. Seabirds that consumed plastic waste had

PCBs in their tissues at 300% higher than those birds that had no waste in them (Rochman et al. 2013).

The authors recommend that more effort should be put into developing closed-loop recycling systems

for all plastics. They estimate that if current consumption rates for plastic continues along the same

trajectory the planet will need to hold another 33 billion tons of plastic by 2050, but this could be

reduced to just 4 billion tons if plastics are re-classified as hazardous waste and are replaced with safer,

reusable materials.

Conclusions

While LCA studies are useful tools for analyzing the environmental effects of various beverage container

choices, they also can lead to confusion in regard to the data being reported in a variety of ways

(volumes, units, weights etc.) Also the actual criteria being used by each LCA may differ leading to unfair

comparisons. In summary, no single LCA can offer us a true picture of what the environmental impact is

for us to use a certain type of one-time use beverage container. But the data for BC does show that

both glass and aluminum containers do contain high amounts of recycled content, whereas we have no

idea what this is for PET containers, and it is likely very low if at all. Also, the cumulative environmental

effect of plastic waste, especially in the marine environment, is something all of us should be concerned

about.

While Thompson Rivers University students, staff and faculty represent just a minuscule part of the

consumers of one-use beverage containers in British Columbia, there is a chance for us to become pro-

active in regard to lessening our impact on the environment. We call ourselves ‘the University of Choice

for Environmental Sustainability’ in our Strategic Plan and the beverage container review being

undertaken by the University represents an excellent opportunity to make science-based decisions

around this issue. Based on all the information collected in this report, we feel that it makes sense to

stop the purchase one-time use PET beverage containers, and allow for only the purchase of aluminum

cans and glass containers on campus. At the same time we would actively encourage the beverage

industry to use a closed-loop recycle system for PET plastics and significantly increase the recycled

content of their containers. As time progresses, if this does occur, then it would be prudent for the

University to re-examine this issue.

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