Although Gatorade seems to have perfected the science of the energy drink, they haven't yet perfected the art of minimizing packaging waste. ln fact, it became obvious to me recently that Gatorade's plastic bottles are noticeably heavier and thicker than most other 20-ounce plastic bottles. As a result, they are also more wasteful than most plastic bottles. Since most plastic bottles are only used once and then thrown away, responsible drink makers have begun to minimize the amount of packaging waste in their products.

Specifically, I compared the empty weight of a Gatorade® plastic bottle (20oz) to the empty weights of a Zephyrhills® Eco-shape® plastic bottle (20oz), a Coca-Cola® plastic bottle (20oz), an Aquafina® plastic bottle (20oz), and a Great Value® (Wal-mart) plastic bottle. The bar graph below shows the relative weights of the 5 empty plastic bottles that I measured:

As you can see, Gatorade plastic bottles weigh considerably more than the other 4 bottles in this comparison. In fact, they about three times as much as the Zephyrhills bottles, and about 57% more than the mid-weight Aquafina plastic bottle. Part of the reason that Gatorade bottles weigh more than other bottles is because they have a wider mouth than most plastic bottles. Since the mouth of a bottle requires the thickest plastic, the larger bottle mouth makes Gatorade bottle heavier than if it had a normal size mouth.

Gatorade has obviously put some thought into the design of their plastic bottle, since it has a wider opening than most plastic bottles which allows Gatorade drinkers to drink faster. This is a clever innovation for a sports drink because people are usually extremely thirsty after sports & physical activity. On the other hand, Gatorade has failed to consider the environmental impact of their bottles yet, as evidenced by how their bottles are so much heavier - and unnecessarily wasteful - than most 20-oz plastic bottles.

As more consumers are showing an awareness for the environment and a preference for green products, more companies are realizing that reducing the amount of waste in their products has benefits for the environment as well as the company. For instance, in 2007 Zephyrhills introduced their Eco-shape plastic bottles, which was made of about 30% less plastic than most of the plastic bottles at the time. The environment wins because each bottle thrown away is less wasteful (than alternative bottles), and Zephyrhills saves money (in the long run; after the short-term costs have been abosbed) because less raw material (plastic) is used per bottle, which lowers the cost per bottle. Plus, Zephyrhills increases customer loyalty because consumers feel like Zephyrhills cares about the environment and people. And lastly, environmental imrpovements like this also attract new enironmentally-conscious consumers.