The vast majority of these bottles are not recycled and end up in landfills or in the ocean.
While many of these bottles are made out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a highly recyclable material, efforts to recycle fail to keep up with the growing rate at which people use plastic bottles.
Moreover, major food corporations continue to manufacture demand for soda and bottled water, packaged mainly in plastic, which takes hundreds of years to decompose.
A report conducted by the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) found only about 30 percent of PET bottles in the U.S. (most bottled water bottles) were recycled in 2015.
Major drink brands like Coca-Cola produce the greatest number of plastic bottles, but the top six beverage companies package their products in bottles that use very little recycled PET.
This means plastic is not only polluting our environment, but it is also putting human health in danger.
Fracked Gas’s Role in Plastics The pollution caused by plastic doesn’t just come from the drink industry.
Most of the plastic created from ethane is used in packaging such as beverage bottles.
That means it’s not just major food and beverage corporations that profit from the destruction of the planet brought on by plastics pollution.
In order to preserve our oceans and our planet, major corporations need to stop exploiting our natural resources for profit, and that means putting an end to fracking and bottled water for good.