Japanese Disposable PET bottles: Stylish Garbage
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 12.21.07
The dumbbell-shaped bottle of Suntory’s ‘LET’S’ diet-drink practically drags you to your workout.
OK they have a high recycling rate in Japan; 65% of PET bottles are recycled. But they also used 515,414 tons of PET resin to make these bottles, so 180,314 tons of bottle waste is still going somewhere else. Perhaps some are going onto people's shelves, because the bottlers spend so much energy and time producing really distinctive disposables.
The PET bottle industry actually has a slogan "Express Yourself Or Impress Others With Your (PET Bottle)" - according to PingMag, , they are marketed as fashion accessories, "like fashion items, mobile phones or iPods. Now, what does this tea bottle and its shape tell us about its consumers, their personality and attitude? Encased in a striking sleeve of saturated primary colour, there is no decoration other than a little text in a tiny font… Must be a minimalist!
See bamboo shaped bottles, crystal bottles, weird bottles, none designed for efficiency of production or shipping or energy efficiency but just for marketing. What a waste. ::Pingmag
I think that the image of the second bottle is one of the standard sizes for Japanese PET bottles, just with a different wrapper.