PepsiCo targets a 35 percent cut in virgin plastic by 2025, expands SodaSteam business

16 Sep 2019 --- PepsiCo has announced a new target to reduce 35 percent of virgin plastic content across its beverage portfolio by 2025, which equates to the elimination of an estimated 2.5 million metric tons of cumulative virgin plastic. The beverage giant seeks to drive progress through the increased use of recycled content and alternative packaging materials. Additionally, through the expansion of PepsiCo’s SodaStream business, the corporation expects to cut 67 billion plastic bottles from production by 2025.

These targets tie into PepsiCo’s sustainable packaging vision and are in alignment with its “Beyond the Bottle” strategy which, in addition to SodaStream, includes the QR-code-enabled Hydration Platform – an automated water dispenser for refillable bottles – and other offerings that deliver beverages without single-use plastic bottles.

“While our efforts are far from done, this is one more step in PepsiCo’s journey toward helping to build a world where plastics need never become waste,” says PepsiCo Chairman and CEO, Ramon Laguarta. “Even as we work to accelerate business growth, we continue to make important progress toward a circular economy for packaging.”

PepsiCo’s sustainable plastics vision is rooted in three pillars: “Reducing the amount of plastics used, Boosting recycling rates and Reinventing plastic packaging.”

This latest announcement builds upon the company’s previously outlined packaging goals to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable, compostable or biodegradable and increase its use of recycled content in plastic packaging to 25 percent by 2025. 

Examples of PepsiCo's progress in sustainable packaging include:

• PepsiCo’s premium water brand LIFEWTR will be packaged in 100 percent recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) in the US, similar to the company’s Naked Juice brand. The company’s sparkling water brand bubly will no longer be packaged in plastic, beginning in 2020.
• Aquafina will begin offering aluminum can packaging in US foodservice outlets, while the brand tests the move in retail, starting in 2020.
• In select locations across Latin America and Asia, brands like Pepsi, 7UP and Mirinda offer consumers refillable plastic and glass bottles.
• In Western Europe, Tropicana relaunched using 50 percent rPET bottles and aims to reach 100 percent rPET by 2025.

The targets above are based on a 2018 baseline. In 2018, PepsiCo's total virgin plastic volume use was 2.2 million metric tons.

The need for simplified plastics is underscored.Reaching for rPET
The availability and cost-effectiveness of recycled PET (rPET) in comparison to virgin plastics are often highlighted as key issues in the drive for greater sustainability in plastics packaging.

In spite of challenges, some manufacturers are rallying behind the recycling movement. For example, in July, Tri Star Packaging declared its brand the first in the UK to launch disposable cutlery made from recycled materials, which are also fully recyclable. Over the past 18 months, Tri-Star Packaging and its manufacturer suppliers have invested in NPD featuring rPET, such as Jewel, a new range of salad containers made from 100 percent rPET.

In an exclusive interview with PackagingInsights, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer at Veolia UK & Ireland, Richard Kirkman, further highlights the most important factor inciting a ubiquitous shift towards rPET: “It’s a demand-led industry, so we do not produce more than we are asked to make.”

“There’s a bit of mythology around ‘there’s not enough capacity,’” he adds. “When there was a tax imposed on landfill, people started building recycling centers and it is the same with rPET – Veolia will not just make it on the off chance that someone might use it, but if we can see that people will use it because of the regulatory changes, then we will invest the hundreds of millions in the packaging plants to produce the feedstock.”

Taxes on plastics packaging have been implemented in the UK and France. Meanwhile, the European Parliament has taken the decision to ban the ten single-use plastic items most commonly found on European beaches – and which make up 70 percent of all marine litter – by 2021. 

When asked if such taxes would fuel the demand for rPET and other alternative packaging materials, Kirkman answers, “I think it will. The day that [the UK Plastics Tax] was announced, we immediately had people knocking on our door asking ‘have we got any supply?’ Before that it didn’t happen, but the announcement of the plastics tax alone has already started to move people.”

Bruce Bratley, Founder and CEO of First Mile, speaking to PackagingInsights from the floor of Packaging Innovations 2019 in London, further underscores the need for simplified plastics to ease the recycling process: “We need fewer types of plastics, so we go down to a limited number of polymers. I’d also like to see packaging designers and manufacturers working with the end-of-life supply chain to ensure that the new products in the marketplace have a very high level of recyclability.”

By Benjamin Ferrer