Single-serve sodas are often sold in three different types of packaging, either a plastic bottle, glass bottle or aluminum can. Debates have long been waged about which type of packaging makes your drink taste better, but which is better when it ends up in the recycling bin?

The good news: all three types of soda packaging can be recycled in the blue bin! Just make sure they're clean and dry before recycling.

Plastic bottles are probably the least desirable choice for recycling. They are made out of polyethylene terephthalate, aka PET. PET is recyclable, and when our bottles get sent to the recycling facility they are sorted and sold to recyclers, who will grind them into little pellets that can be melted down to make new plastic items. However, most plastic bottles we use today are downcycled-- downcycling is still recycling, and still important to keep materials out of our landfills, but it is not the best solution. Downcycling is when a material is recycled into something of a lower value/quality, and often the new material is itself non-recyclable. A common application for recycled PET is fiber products, so your old bottle might turn into carpeting, or a fleece. A better option than regular PET are bottles made out of recycled PET, but many major beverage companies are rolling back recycling goals that they committed to in the past, making PET bottles made from PET bottles a rare sight on store shelves.

Aluminum and glass are both good options in terms of recyclability. Both are infinitely recyclable, meaning that aluminum cans can turn right back into aluminum cans, and glass can turn directly into glass. Our materials recovery facility separates out aluminum cans using a magnetized eddy current, and glass by using a glass breaker that creates shards of glass that are sold to recyclers. Curious to learn more about the recycling process of these materials? Check out our blog post: https://www.iwma.com/let-s-talk-about-recycling 

All of these packages can be responsible choices, as long as they end up in the blue bin! By recycling, the resources that made up our beverage containers are given a new life, whereas when they end up in the trash, those resources are buried in the landfill, where they never get the chance to become something new.