Plastic pollution is everybody's business

Boat floating in an ocean full of litter

Plastic pollution is a growing problem, particularly in our oceans. Around 80% of ocean plastic flows from sources on land and has a devastating impact on marine life. We can all play our part to turn the tide on plastic pollution. Deposit return and reverse vending are land-based solutions to this ocean-borne problem – and we can all get involved.

Awareness of plastic pollution has sky-rocketed – the world has truly woken up to the plastic waste crisis and more and more solutions are being explored. Every bottle and can collected for recycling through reverse vending means one less container sent to landfill or ending up in our streets and oceans, and one less container that needs to be made out of virgin plastic.

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Combating plastic pollution

What can you do to help?

The rise in plastic pollution

Plastic pollution has continued to rise, so much so that we are now facing a waste crisis. The amount of plastic pollution that ends up in the oceans each year is the equivalent of one garbage truck per minute. Plastic waste is leaking into our environment and clogging up our oceans. There is an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the oceans. If this continues, by 2050, the amount of plastic in the ocean will outweigh the fish.

Of the 78 million tons of plastic packaging produced every year, only 14% is collected for recycling. Crucially, only 2% of all the world’s plastic packaging is recycled in a “closed loop”, where material can be used for the same or similar kind of packaging once again. 86% of plastic packaging currently ends up in landfills and incinerators, or as litter.¹

The impact of plastic pollution

The impact of plastic leaking into the environment is cause for huge concern. Not only does ocean plastic pollution have a devastating impact on our shores and wildlife, microplastics consumed by sea creatures – and the chemicals associated with those plastics – are also working their way up the food chain to humans.

The average human now eats a credit card worth of plastic each week², and the impact on human physiology is still unknown. Microplastics have been identified in drinking water and beer, and are even falling in the rain.³

Image of TOMRA beach clean-up plastic pollution

Turning off the tap

500 billion plastic beverage bottles are produced each year. They are one of the most commonly found litter items, and it is estimated that a plastic bottle takes 450 years to break down in nature. The good news is that most plastic bottles are made of PET and HDPE, which are highly recyclable materials. In this way, plastic should not be seen as disposable, but as a valuable resource that can be used again and again if containers are recycled in the right way.

Image of girls looking at bottles in store

bUYING THE drink, but borrowing the container

Deposit return schemes

Deposit return systems (also known as deposit return schemes or DRS) work by adding a deposit to the price of a beverage, which is refunded to a consumer when they return the empty bottle or can for recycling. Plastic bottles are often seen as a symbol of a throw-away society; giving them a financial value signals they also have a value for society as a resource. DRSs are typically established through legislation passed by state or national governments.

The European average collection rate for PET plastic beverage containers in a curbside system is 47%, versus 94% for deposit systems.⁴ Drink container litter as a proportion of all litter is 66% less in regions with a DRS in place.⁵ DRSs are being evaluated as a solution to the challenge of plastic waste, because they achieve up to 98% collection rates for eligible drink containers.

Learn more about deposit return systems

Couple returning a container in a TOMRA T9

PUTTING RECYCLING TO WORK FOR YOU

Reverse vending

Reverse vending machines (RVMs) are a key technology for enabling deposit return systems. People return empty drink containers like bottles and cans for recycling, and get their deposit refunded. RVMs are an automated way to collect, sort and handle the return of containers.

RVMs scan containers’ barcodes, materials or shapes, to identify the packaging type and give the correct refund. The machine then sorts the containers into different types, such as moving refillable containers to one storage area and compacting (crushing) non-refillable containers.

RVMs benefit end users and sites collecting bottles and cans by making recycling more efficient and enjoyable, and benefit the environment by keeping container materials “in the loop”.

Learn more about reverse vending machines

Get in the loop

Clean Loop Recycling

Every time a container is recycled, its materials can be used to create a new one, reducing the amount of resources needed and amount of waste sent to landfills.

When a bottle is returned to an RVM for recycling, it is kept separate from other kinds of waste, avoiding contamination that can make it more complex and costly to recycle. With materials remaining pure and high quality, they can be turned back into a new container, again and again. The material can stay in a closed “loop” rather than thrown away or turned into lower-quality applications that cannot be recycled again, like a park bench ("down-cycling"). It also reduces the need to extract virgin resources to produce new containers, such as oil for plastic bottles.

TOMRA calls this “Clean Loop Recycling”, and we’re striving to keep containers in the loop and out of streets and oceans. The more we put in the Clean Loop, the less we take from the planet.

Learn more about Clean Loop Recycling

Everyone has a role in ensuring plastic stays out of our waterways and communities. TOMRA captures over 45 billion drink containers each year for recycling through its 80,000 reverse vending installations across more than 60 markets. But, we just facilitate this: it is the redemption providers and consumers who truly make this happen.

There are limitless examples of how plastic pollution affects life on land as well as at sea. There is no one solution to the problem, but for a better future for our planet, we need to innovate and implement new solutions to help manage plastic waste. Deposit return and reverse vending technology give policymakers, retailers and consumers the power to play their part and make an impact in reducing pollution.

The 45 billion containers TOMRA collects each year represent only 3% of containers sold, so there's much more we can do together to stop containers ending up where they don’t belong.