1. The approach to sustainable packaging and the future of plastics in packaging.
2. With public interest in the impacts of plastic leakage into the natural environment soaring, it becomes easy to lose sight of why plastics are used in the first place. As materials, plastics are light-weight, strong, versatile, cheap and hygienic, and so they have significant benefits for the packaging industry. Without plastics, it would be difficult for consumers to enjoy the sheer range of choice that exists in the market today.
BOTTLED WATER COMPANIES SWITCH TO FULLY RECYCLED BOTTLE?
1. the industry is under attack, from consumers who are beginning to worry about waste, to municipalities and museums and parks that are trying to ban them.
2. It is really hard to make a new clear bottle out of old plastic. So the material is down-cycled into lower grade products rather than recycled
3. All the companies have tried to introduce recycled plastic into their bottles but barely get above 10 percent. PLA bio-based bottles have failed in the marketplace as well.
4. Most of it gets turned into clothes and carpets since plastic loses some of its structural properties and becomes discolored with each recycle, diminishing the appeal to bottled-water makers.
5. Now Evian, the French bottled water owned by Danone, is trying to use a process from a Montreal company, Loop Industries, which apparently has "a revolutionary technology poised to transform the plastics industry. This ground-breaking technology decouples plastic from fossil fuels by depolymerizing waste polyester plastic to its base building blocks (monomers).
6. The monomers are then repolymerized to create virgin-quality polyester plastic that meets FDA requirements for use in food-grade packaging."
COCA-COLA EUROPEAN PARTNERS (CCEP)
1. Currently over 91% of the primary packaging produced by CCEP is 100% recyclable, which includes all our plastic bottles, glass bottles and cans.
2. One of the limiting factors in increasing recycled content is the availability of the high-quality food-grade PET resin needed. CCEP recognised that in order to achieve its recycling ambitions, it would need to invest in reprocessing capabilities in Great Britain. That is why in 2012 CCEP invested in creating the largest and most sophisticated food-grade PET bottle-to-bottle reprocessing plant in Europe. The sustainable future of plastics in packaging is dependent on actions such as these, to cope with the volume of plastics that must be repurposed to support the circular economy.
3. In turn, the supply of high quality, used plastic bottles to feed the reprocessing facility is critical to its success. One of the other key pillars of CCEP’s Sustainable Packaging Strategy is to ensure consumers can readily understand what is recyclable.
4. CCEP now features messaging on the closures of more than 500m bottles every year with a ‘please recycle me’ message. We ensure our packs carry the On-Pack Recycling Label (OPRL) symbol to show they are widely recycled, and we ensure that our adverts carry a clear message about the recyclability and the need to recycle our packs.
NESTLE WATERS WILL QUADRUPLE RECYCLED PLASTIC USAGE
1. the company currently uses about 7 percent recycled content across its U.S. portfolio. It will be using 25 percent recycled plastic in the packaging for all of its U.S. products in three years.
2. Nestlé Waters North America announced the goal Dec. 10, adding that the 2021 milestone is part of its wider goal to hit 50 percent recycled plastic by 2025.
3. To secure the feedstock the company needs for such a move, Nestlé Waters is expanding its relationship with “key supplier” Plastrec, a Joliette, Quebec producer of food-grade post-consumer recycled PET resin. This and other partnerships, including with post-consumer bottle-to-bottle reclaimer CarbonLite, will allow Nestlé Waters to nearly quadruple its use of recycled PET by 2021.
4. This is the latest in several Nestlé Waters initiatives to advance materials recovery in the U.S. The company invested $6 million in the Closed Loop Fund, supports organizations such as Keep America Beautiful, and already uses a significant percentage of recycled content in its beverage containers. For instance, in California the company reported using nearly 43 percent recycled plastic across all its beverage containers produced in the state in 2017. That works out to nearly 30 million pounds of recycled plastic.
5. Nestlé Waters also this year released a 100 percent recycled PET bottle under the Nestlé Pure Life brand, using resin sourced from Plastrec.
(Source:resource-recycling, tree-hugger, fstjournal)
