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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — April is  Earth Month .  And   over the past 20 years, plastic pollution has more than doubled.   

But, what you do the next time you are finished using a plastic bottle could help reverse that trend.   

Every day, you and I drink from plastic water bottles, b ut have you ever closely read the labels?  Many say this bottle is “100% recyclable.”  Is this phase a climate game-changer or is it just another catchy marketing ploy?  

Plastic bottles make up 400 tons of recycled items every day in  Mecklenburg County  alone.   

“People do recycle because they don’t want it going into a landfill, where it’s going to sit for hundreds and hundreds of years," Jeff Smithberger, director of Mecklenburg Solid Waste, said.  "And can never be reused again." 

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With 39 years in solid waste, Jeff Smithberger said more people are conscious of recycling.  In fact, every single-family home in Mecklenburg County has curbside recycling.   

“We want there to be an end-use for these products, where it’s in a shirt that may have some low-density polyethylene materials or whether it’s in another bottle. We want those recycled products to be used and to be in the circular economy,” Smithberger said.    

And once you quench your thirst, popular beverage companies are sending a clear message.   

“To help reduce plastic waste in our environment, American beverage companies are carefully designing our bottles to be 100% recyclable," American Beverage Association stressed. "That means every bottle that is recycled can be turned into the material we use to make new bottles. Please help us get every bottle back."

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"(Resin) 1 and (Resin) 2's, those bottles typically filled with water or soda are absolutely accepted and they are very valuable," Nena Shaw, Environmental Protection Agency said. "That stream of waste is a commodity that is then captured through the recycling system and then sold and then created into new products." 

Nena Shaw with the  EPA  said in the past 20 years, plastic waste has more than doubled to 353 million tons – by comparison, that is 200 times as heavy as a car.   

“And when we think about that, and even step back look at both plastic production and waste to 2050, they’re expected to quadruple, so it is so important right now to reduce, and to reuse and to recycle as much as we possibly can,” Shaw said.    

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Shaw said if we embrace every day like Earth Day, we will reduce greenhouse gases and increase the recycling rate.   

Mecklenburg Solid Waste  said 99% of plastic bottles and jugs with a neck smaller than the body can be recycled. Be sure to peel off labels that cover most of the bottle to ensure the machine scans the container as plastic.   

Contact KJ Jacobs at  kjacobs3@wcnc.com  and follow him on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .

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