Bottles made from bottles?

Let’s start at the beginning. Awareness of plastic pollution, including the damage of plastic bottles to our environment is at an all-time high… the next thing you know… everything’s hunky dory and swept under the carpet with the rise of this healing statement…

Bottles made from bottles?

Recognise this? Feeling rather confused? So were we. But now we’re here to help clear the chaos and expose the TRUTH behind these plastic giants’ claims. Ultimately, we don’t believe recycled plastic (most of which recycled polyethylene terephthalate, aka rPET) is a solution to plastic pollution. Why not, you ask? Well keep on reading…

1. Plastic Bottles are NOT RECYCLABLE FOREVER

It is common knowledge that PET can’t be recycled more than a few times (we’re talking a max of around 5). It’s SO difficult to separate the constituents of plastic, that the idea of a ‘plastic recycling loop’ – ie. a plastic bottle made from another plastic bottle – is just a fantasy. Due to it’s low-quality composition, plastic bottles usually get DOWN-CYCLED to be sold into another form of plastic. This simply delays the inevitable… Hello landfill.

In addition to this recyclable limit, manufactures have to add many more chemicals to the recycled plastic to make it into something usable again… doesn’t sound much like recycling to us!

2. Plastic Bottles collected and what’s ACTUALLY RECYCLED doesn’t add up

We’ve done some digging beneath the plastic manufacturers’ claim that circa 60% of PET is recycled. However, the reality behind this stat is really rather different. According to PETCORE’s own report… only 39% of PET is actually recycled. Mind blown. Did the rest just get lost along the way?

Total amount of PET bottles placed on the market

3.4m metric tonnes 100%

Collected for recycling

2.1m metric tonnes 61%

Sorted for recycling

1.9m metric tonnes 55%

Actual rPET Output

1.35m metric tonnes 39%

3. ALL plastics are harmful to the planet and our health

Toxicologist Prof. dr. Dick Vethaak has stated “we are dealing with a human health issue as well” and we couldn’t put it any better ourselves. It’s frightening. All plastics, both rPET, PET and more affect our health in numerous ways.

If you didn’t know already, we drink, eat and breathe microplastics EVERY DAY putting our health at risk. We consume an average of nearly 2,000 microplastics in water, seafood, salt and beer every seven days – that’s enough to make a bank card. Yes, you read that right!

Plastic products contain chemical additives – many associated with serious health problems such as hormone-related cancers, infertility and neurodevelopment disorders like ADHD and autism. Let that sink in.

When plastics and microplastics end up in our environment, they attract micro-organisms, such as harmful bacteria (pathogens). If microplastics containing these then enter our body, they may increase the risk of infection. The truth really does hurt.

4. Plastic manufactures are fooling us

Last but not least, plastic manufactures are deceiving us ALL. They’ll claim that recycling plastic emits less greenhouse gases. They’ll prove this through indigestible LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment) reports and the manipulation of data. It’s true! PET 50cl bottle weights vary massively, so of course they’ll favour ultra-lightweight compositions to use in their comparisons with recycled aluminium cans. A true industry representation? We think not.

On the other hand, recycled cans really DO use 95% less energy to produce than those made from raw materials. Not only is aluminium the most recycled and recyclable packaging on the planet, its composition is recyclable FOREVER with no material degrading. This means in the long run, we’ll be paying it forward – as every can recycled reduces the carbon footprint of the next. Consequently, far LESS greenhouse emissions than plastic!

So let’s face it. Bottles made from bottles is a clever façade. The plastic giants are clearly feeling the sustainability FOMO (fear-of-missing-out) and offering their consumers a fake ‘feel good’ moment when drinking from ‘recycled’ plastic. This can’t be justified! It’s time to pop this bubble of plastic recycling perfection and expose the muddy reality. Recycled, or not, there is ultimately no plastic loop. All plastics will inevitably find their way to our forests, oceans and consequently our stomachs.

So that my dear friends, is straight up #GREENWASHING. Your welcome.

It’s time to ditch the bottle and choose CanO Water!

Let’s start at the beginning. Awareness of plastic pollution, including the damage of plastic bottles to our environment is at an all-time high… the next thing you know… everything’s hunky dory and swept under the carpet with the rise of this healing statement…