Bottle on the beach

The bottle on the beach encapsulates many of the issues in waste management. It's a great example to look at as unfortunately it is a common sight.

Why is it here?

The discarded plastic bottle is waste. It is not intentionally placed there, but has been used for its designed purpose (to contain a beverage) and is now no longer needed.

The bottle will be made from PET (Polyethylene terephthalate), a type of plastic mainly used for beverage bottles but also for food trays and clothing (polyester). The world produced approximately 28 million tonnes of PET in 2025 on an increasing trend projected to reach 30 million tonnes by 2030. About 30% of PET production goes to bottle manufacturing. The bottle itself weighs only about 10 grams after years of reducing weight known as 'lightweighting'. Doing the maths, this equals 840 billion PET bottles manufactured in 2026. Many assumptions can change this figure, but it is undoubtely a huge number. With this high production, it seems impossible for none of them to go astray at the end of their design life with a lack of mechanisms and incentives for reuse and recycling. People must see the PET bottle as an item of value and usefulness, to incentivise them to return it for reuse and recycling.

Note: PET is a small fraction of global plastics production of 400 million tonnes annualy. See here for more.

What about recycling?

Recycling alone doesn't prevent a plastic bottle being discarded in the environment, but it does attempt to recover the materials used in products to make new products and raises awareness of the environment and sustainability. It sits within the ecosystem of circular economy and is the next rung up on the waste hierarchy, so lets start here.

Recycling of PET bottles is possible, and PET is one of the plastic polymers most successfully recycled however this requires that the bottles are collected for recycling. The collection rate in Europe, one of the most advanced recycling regions, is around 60%. This varies widely by country based upon the collection system. Where a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is implemented, collection rates can be as high as 95% (Germany). Where there is no direct monetary incentive to recycle, bottles are collected in kerbside recycling with lower collection rates. In the UK the collection rate is around 60% while in Greece it is as low as 28%.

Material choices

PET is very popular as a choice for beverage containers due to its chemical properties, price and availability. It is primarily made from fossil fuels, which continues to see increased production year on year despite carbon reduction targets. Alternatives do exist, such as aluminimun, glass or cartons (think Tetrapak). Each material has advantages and disadvantages with environmental impacts heavily influenced by assumptions behind production and energy. Glass for example is more impacts due to higher weight and the energy required to melt and remelt glass. Aluminium is a global production chain stretching all the way to the bauxite mines of Australia. PET plastic is made from fossil fuels, and there are concerns with microplastics and additives used in manufacturing them.

Lifecycle Assessment is a powerful tool to investigate specific scenarios and can guide us to the least impactful materials for specific applications and regions, however changing the material does not solve all our problems. If it was this easy, why do we still see a multitude of materials in packaging?

For an example of an LCA on beverage packaging look here.

Biomaterials

What if the plastic bottle was made from biodegradable plastics, then the problem would 'disappear'? Having looked at biomaterials in a project for DEFRA on food waste caddy liners, I can say that this is a very complex topic with no easy answers.

Many materials marketed as 'compostable', 'bio' and similar can in fact be made from fossil fuels. They may also require specific conditions to be labelled compostable which will not exist if lying on a beach or on a roadside. They may also not breakdown in water. There is a lot happening in this field and I am no expert, however at this point it doesn't seem a viable solution to start manufacturing millions of tonnes of bioplastics that will have lower environmental impacts than existing solutions. Lots more info and stats here if interested.

People, behaviour, culture and infrastructure

Believe it or not, not all places have littering or bottles on beaches as a problem. In Japan, people are accustomed to taking any rubbish they generate home with them, tidying up in public, famously even going so far as to tidy up their area of the stands at sporting events abroad. In other places, the lack of infrastructure combined with high usage of plastic products exacerbates the problem. Bali is (in)famous for plastic pollution on its beaches. A lack of collection and recycling infrastructure means discarded plastics collect in rivers and ditches and are washed out to sea in heavy rains. In Ghana, the lack of safe public drinking water has created a thriving industry in water pouches: 500ml bags of water that have been UV sterilised, can be purchased on the roadside, and unfortunately end up on the roadside as well.

Japanese fans collecting rubbish in the Qatar football world cup. Image from https://www.fifa.com/en/articles/world-cup-qatar-2022-japan-fans-collect-litter

A bin and a recycling plant aren't strict requirements to avoid litter and promote circularity, however without them it is highly likely we will see big problems with plastic pollution.

Don't lose it, reuse it

Why buy water in a plastic bottle when you can fill up a flask at home and take it with you? This is the ideal scenario, as with enough uses (in the region of 20 depending on materials) the additional emissions associated with production of a reusable metal flask are less than producing dozens of new or recycling plastic bottles.

Reuse requires infrastructure. Water must be clean and safe to drink from the tap. Moving beyond water to soft drinks, not many people have a soft drink tap at home. Can we increase reuse and refill to more difficult products such as carbonated soft drinks? How can we design such a system to work economically and have less environmental impacts?

There are examples of reuse systems that provide inspiration:

Coca Cola runs a deposit return scheme for large bottles in South America, where instead of being recycled they are washed and reused. This saved 1.8 billion bottles in Brazil alone in 2019. Link here.

Next time you see a bottle

Pick it up. See if it has a label for recycled content, and where it comes from. Put it in the recycling bin. Who knows, it may make a difference.