Nestlé signs European Plastics Pact to reinvigorate packaging sustainability charge

06 Mar 2020 --- Nestlé has signed up to the European Plastics Pact to help it achieve 100 percent recyclable or reusable packaging and reduce the use of virgin plastics by one third by 2025. The European Plastics Pact, initiated by France and the Netherlands, is designed to accelerate the transition towards a circular plastics economy and stop the sole dependence on virgin plastics made from non-renewable fossil fuel.

The food and beverage giant highlights that plastics have delivered “enormous benefits” over the past fifty years but recognizes that the “clear cost” of packaging ending up in landfills, oceans, lakes and rivers is too great.

The Pact brings together leading companies, NGOs and governments, that are committed to realizing common sustainability goals by 2025 and willing go beyond the current legislation.

European Plastics Pact targets include:

• Reducing virgin plastic products and packaging by at least 20 percent.
• Raising collection and recycling capacity in Europe for plastic packaging by at least 25 percent.
• Boosting the use of recycled plastics in packaging to an average of at least 30 percent.

Vittel's initiatives to reduce its environmental footprint.“One of our joint objectives is to create a circular economy by improving collection, sorting and recycling schemes across Europe. Already today a new Vittel plastic bottle is manufactured out of used ones. Tomorrow, we want to make sure that also other packaging, such as our wrappers and pouches, can be recycled into new food packaging,” comments Marco Settembri, Nestlé CEO for Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

Creating a market for recycled plastics
A big challenge here is maintaining food-grade safety while increasing the percentage of recycled content. To achieve food-grade recycled plastics, recycling processes will have to evolve, Nestlé indicates. 

Another challenge for Nestlé and the food industry at large is that it is currently cheaper to produce packaging from virgin plastics than to use recycled food-grade plastics. To give “a clear signal to recycling companies to focus on recycled food-grade material and help create a new market,” Nestlé recently announced a 2 billion Swiss francs (US$2.08 billion) investment in recycled food-grade plastics and the development of innovative sustainable packaging solutions.

Shortly after this investment was announced, Nestlé Swiss water brand Henniez announced that its entire plastic bottle range is now made of 75 percent recycled PET (rPET). Meanwhile, in the example spotlighted by Settembri, Nestlé Waters brand Vittel launched the first 100 percent recycled plastic 75 CL bottle in France in November 2019.

Nestlé had also joined forces with recycling and recovery organization Citeo and food company Mars, international energy company Total and plastic recycling technology provider Recycling Technologies to establish an industrial chemical recycling industry in France.

Packaging-free and home delivery
To further reduce the use of virgin plastics, Nestlé is reinventing the ways it delivers its products. It is currently trialing a packaging-free system for dispensing Purina PetCare pet food and Nescafé soluble coffee. Nestlé has also partnered with LOOP, a home-delivery service initiated by TerraCycle providing reusable packaging. The first products will soon become available in France.Nestlé has also partnered with the LOOP reusable packaging scheme.

To further accelerate this process of innovation, Nestlé has launched a 250 million Swiss francs (US$266 million) sustainable packaging fund focusing on start-ups developing packaging innovation, including new materials, as well as refill systems and recycling solutions.

In a notable plastic-free development, Nestlé’s YES! snack bars became “the first confectionary bar on the market” to be packaged in paper using a high-speed flow wrap technology last year. The packaging is supplied by global diversified wood fiber company Sappi.

Nestlé’s overall packaging sustainability ambitions include:

• Playing an active role in the development of well-functioning collection, sorting and recycling schemes across the countries it operates in;
• Working with value chain partners and industry associations to explore different packaging solutions to reduce plastic usage, facilitate recycling and develop new approaches to eliminate plastic waste;
• Labeling its plastic product packaging with recycling information to help consumers dispose of it in the right way;
• Promoting a market for recycled plastics by continuing to increase the proportion of recycled plastics in its packaging.

This week, Nestlé partnered with Australian recycler iQ Renew to trial soft plastic recycling from over 100,000 households through kerbside recycling, diverting approximately 750,000 metric tons of soft plastic from landfill.

By Joshua Poole