Earth Day 2010: 3 billionth drink container recycled

Since the Bottle and Can Deposit Law passed 1.24 billion glass bottles, 1.06 billion cans, and 810.8 million plastic bottles were collected
 
To mark global Earth Day, the Beverage Containers Collection Corporation Ltd. Israel's recycling corporation, marked last Thursday its three billionth drink container collected.
 
Since the Bottle and Can Deposit Law 5759-1999 passed nine years ago, the corporation has collected 1.24 billion glass bottles, 1.06 billion cans, and 810.8 million plastic bottles.
 
The plastic bottles collected were used to manufacture 1.5 billion baskets used to sell fruit at supermarkets. The glass bottles amount to 281,000 tons of glass and saved the need to quarry 80,000 tons of sand at the Makhtesh Hakatan. The cans collected, with a total weight of 26,000 tons, were sent to a steel mill for recycling into new raw material, which was used in the construction of 1,605 secure rooms, thousands of apartments, and miles of fences.
 
The Recycling Corporation also contended that in just ten years Israel had reached recycling rates for bottles under the Deposit Law equivalent to that of Europe and the US – almost 70%. That's a three percent increase since last year.
 
Beverage Containers Collection Corp. chairman Nehama Ronen said, "The Israeli public can be proud for reaching such high levels of recycling in less than a decade, whereas it took the US and European countries 20 years to achieve the same level."