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PET soda bottle recycling rate drops

Figures from the American Plastics Council show that 41% of polyethylene terephthalate soda bottles were reycled in 1995. That ends four successive years in which the percentage increased, says the Container Recycling Institute (Washington, DC), a proponent of refillables and deposit laws.

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CRI's summer/fall newsletter observes that although the volume of PET soda bottles recycled in 1995 rose from 494 million lb in 1994 to 513 million pounds in 1995, a record number of bottles were discarded (see chart). More than 741 million lb of PET soda bottles were either incinerated or land-filled, according to APC data. "With few new municipal curbside recycling programs and no new deposit laws on the horizon, the future for PET soda bottle recycling looks bleak, despite the projected increase in PET bottle production," says CRI in its Summer/Fall newsletter. "Record low prices for scrap PET will only exacerbate the problem."

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