AbstractThe French PVC‐bottle market represents a consumption of 140,000 tons per year, much more than in other countries; in 1960, this consumption was practically nil. The technical ability to produce bottles suitable for the packaging of food products allowed the first general penetration of PVC in the bottle market. One may eventually observe bit differences from country to country in Europe. In the case of France, it clearly appears that it is the technical and legal possibility to use PVC to bottle mineral waters that had provoked the skyrocketing production of bottles from this material. We will analyze the technical, economical, and sociological reasons that have allowed this development to occur, and examine why other market sectors could not be reached by PVC bottles and why the evolutions were not the same in various countries; future trends will also be outline