I need a good estimate of the number of 1, 2, and 3 liter plastic
bottles are used for carbonated beverages in the US and the world.

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Request for Question Clarification by seedy-ga on 20 Sep 2002 11:15 PDT

Dear gdw:

In a recycling report from Plastics News, "In 2000, the soft drink
industry used 1.7 billion pounds of PET in the United States. Coke and
Pepsi have about 75 percent of the market, using nearly 1.28 billion
pounds of PET" Both Coke and Pepsi are using post consumer recycled
PET for a portion of their new bottle production."

If we assume the total world wide market for carbonated drinks is
about double the USA market, it would place the world wide (except for
USA market) at 3.4 billion pounds.

I have emailed an individual who will know the ratio of 1l, 2l, 3l
bottles to the total of bottles...which should give us the USA usage
of these larger sizes.  The approximate weight of bottles is 1 liter
12 bottles per pound, 2 liter 9 bottles per pound, and 3 liter 5
bottles per pound.  My sources will be a bit difficult to give since
Plastics News information is only available to subscribers (which I
am) and the estimate from my very informed friend will have to remain
anonymous.

Will an estimate using the logic and sources above be satisfactory to
you.

seedy