Recycling Scorecard: How Does Your Favorite Drink Rank?

As You Sow, a group focused on promoting corporate accountability, recently completed a report on some of the most prominent beverage companies in the country to evaluate their recycling practices.

As You Sow’s second Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report evaluates new and ongoing efforts by beverage producers to:

1. Reduce materials use
2. Increase recycled content in containers
3. Raise recovery and recycling rates
4. Support public policy initiatives to increase container recycling rates
5. Disclose such activities to stakeholders

The report is based primarily on responses to the organization’s “Beverage Container Recycling Survey,” which was sent to 23 beverage companies. It is also based on publicly available information from websites and corporate social responsibility reports. Survey respondents control 74 percent of the U.S. carbonated soft drink market, over 60 percent of the U.S. bottled water market and almost 50 percent of the U.S. beer industry.

While the highest rank on the report card was a “C” (given to Coca-Cola), As You Sow did note that there were some significant improvements from years prior. Some key findings include:

• Coca-Cola is a leader in its commitments and performance on beverage container source reduction, company-wide recovery goals and in investments in recycling programs.
• Nestlé Waters North America showed the greatest improvement since publication of the 2006 Scorecard and has set an industry-wide goal of a 60 percent recycling rate for PET bottles by 2018.
• PepsiCo reports the highest percentage use of recycled PET in its bottles, 10 percent.
• Anheuser Busch has the most successful company-wide recycling program, processing five cans for every four it produces.