More than two thirds of Germany’s mineral water is bottled in disposable PET bottles, a new life cycle assessment by the German energy and environmental research institute ifeu (Heidelberg; www.ifeu.de/english) has found. What’s more, a little more than 80% of these PET beverage containers have an ecological equivalence with multi use glass bottles, echoing a recent study by the US PET Resin Association (PETRA, New York City; www.petresin.org) – see Plasteurope.com of 12.04.2010.

“There is no reason to defame the single use PET bottle as ‘climate killer’”, says Jürgen Bruder, managing director of the German industry association Industrievereinigung Kunststoffverpackungen (IK, Bad Homburg; www.kunststoffverpackungen.de). In the latest life cycle assessment, one-way PET bottles improved by between 30-50% the evaluation they had received in the previous study, conducted in 2008.

In the crucial field of effects on climate change and ecological impact, ifeu’s new study found that one-way PET bottles managed to save an additional 14% of weight in 2009. In addition, the content of recyclable PET is constantly increasing, now up to between 25-35%. Other reasons why this latest life cycle assessment puts 1.5 l one-way PET bottles on a par with 0.7 l reusable glass bottles include a shortening of distribution distances and lower energy consumption.