However, Jenny Gitlitz of the Container Recycling Institute, based in Washington, D.C., points out that the current PET recycling rate pales in comparison to the 33.1 percent recycling rate the material achieved in 1995, and is essentially the same as the 20.9 percent rate achieved as early as 1990. “The uptick in the PET recycling rate will have to be much steeper to assure us that our nation has really begun to reverse the trend of increasing plastic bottle wasting,” Gitlitz says.
She adds that the volume of PET bottles wasted, or thrown out, has been increasing steadily since 1990. Unrecycled PET rose from 1,300 million pounds in 1995 to 3,634 million pounds in 2004, representing not only a waste of energy and resources but also an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.
The modest increase in the 2004 PET recycling rate can be attributed in part to the recent changes in California's Redemption Value (CRV), which increased deposits for containers under 24 ounces from 2.5 cents to 4 cents and from 5 cents to 8 cents for containers larger than 24 ounces. Gitlitz says that 30 percent of the small increase in the PET recycling rate is attributable to the CRV increase. She adds that if bottle bills did not exist in 11 U.S. states, the national PET recycling rate would probably range from 10 percent to 12 percent.