Three ways to deal with plastic bottles

Last year there was a fairly high profile report on plastic waste, and it generated a lot of discussion. It showed that of the 78 million tonnes of plastic produced globally each year, only 2% gets recycled back into new plastics. 40% ends up in landfill, and just short of a third goes into the natural environment, polluting land and water. Perhaps in response, there’s currently a little flurry of projects and ideas around plastic. Water bottles are getting a lot of attention, and here are three ideas kicking around at the moment for how to deal with them:

Bring in a bottle deposit. Bottle deposit schemes used to be commonplace for glass bottles, and still are in some places. In Norway, they operate one for plastic bottles. 1 Krone is added to the cost of drinks in plastic bottles, so people bring them back. An impressive 96% of…