Soft drinks packaging: Circularity and consumer protection in recycling, barrier coatings and greenwashing legislation

27 Mar 2024 --- Soft drink packagers face numerous challenges associated with the sector’s main materials: plastic, metal and glass. Each presents different production, waste management, and design problems that compound as legislation grows tighter. We sit down with industry experts to discuss how businesses adjust and safeguard against a changing market landscape. 

Despite their differences, the three traditional beverage container options (metal cans, glass bottles, and plastic bottles) also face similar puzzles. Ensure consumer safety from product spoilage or toxic material additives, avoid greenwashing legislation, and increase circularity through recycling or reuse systems. 

With the recent Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) agreement set in stone, all EU companies now have targets to meet on recycled content, recyclability and other circular economy areas. 

Plastic bottles: The circular “frontrunner” 
According to Innova Market Insights, in 2023, Bottle (53%) was the leading packaging format for soft drink launches, and Plastic – Not Specified (26%) was the leading packaging material.

Nicholas Hodac, director general of UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe, says: “The soft drink sector is a frontrunner in advancing a circular economy. We are making a circular economy possible through several meaningful actions aimed at collecting, recycling, reducing or reusing (when and where appropriate from an environmental and economic perspective) our packaging.” 

“It is our commitment to transition to fully circular beverage packaging by making all our packaging (plastic and glass bottles, and aluminum cans) 100% recyclable by 2030, improving their collection (to at least 90%) and increasing the amount of recycled content in our PET bottles.”

UNESDA has repeatedly complained that plastic beverage bottlers in the EU are not given priority access to recycled PET (rPET). Despite the effectiveness of bottle deposit return schemes (DRS) contributing the majority of waste plastic to the recycling stream, the bottling industry gets only a fraction of rPET on the market in return. 

Meeting new legislation 
One of the biggest challenges Hodac says plastic bottlers face in 2024 is to ensure the effective implementation of environmental laws, such as the Single-Use Plastics Directive and the PPWR. 

“Achieving the EU’s mandatory collection, recycling, recycled content and reuse targets will require the timely adoption of the necessary delegated and implemented acts and significant investments from all actors,” he says. 

“The lack of a workable exemption from the reuse targets in the PPWR also represents a challenge for our sector. The exemption provided in the draft PPWR agreement does not consider the good environmental performance of specific packaging formats (such as beverage plastic bottles and aluminum cans) and the significant investments in efficient collection and recycling systems from our sector.” 

Hodac asserts there is “no doubt” that reuse is part of the solution to reduce waste but that the environmental efficacy of solutions varies across different contexts and packaging types. 

Creating cans free from bisphenol A is a challenge packagers must rise to.“A flexible approach, allowing for sector-specific assessments and adaptations to geographical contexts, would optimize environmental benefits. This is unfortunately not recognized in the PPWR,” he says. 

Metal: Clean canning 
Christopher Bradford, marketing director of AkzoNobel’s Industrial Coatings business, tells us that one of the biggest challenges for metal can producers is meeting the European Food Safety Authority’s desire to remove bisphenols as a packaging barrier for F&B products.

“Overall, metal can producers are facing the challenge of finding alternatives to traditional coatings that reduce environmental impact, meet stringent food safety regulations and regulatory compliance, without compromising performance or workability on the highly productive, modern can-making lines,” he says. 

Innova Market Insights pegged “Breakthrough Barriers” as a Top Trend for 2024, noting that research discoveries and public perceptions have led to the challenge of replicating grease and moisture protection and shelf life without using harmful chemicals 

“The industry also faces the challenge of minimizing the economic impact of the speed with which alternative technologies can be integrated into the commercial mainstream — driven by the shortage of experts to support food and can manufacturers with this transition to a new way of working that is commercially and economically viable and does not create serious issues in the supply chain or impact on consumers,” continues Bradford. 

“It is here that the industry needs a clear regulatory framework and a structured and actionable transition program.”

Paper: Fiber-based future? 
With the trend away from plastic and toward fiber-based materials rising, packaging developers continue to design increasingly effective fiber-based beverage bottles. PulPac and PA Consulting have launched the Bottle Collective, an initiative to boost the use of Dry Molded Fiber technology.

Beverage bottlers came under fire for claiming PET bottles are 100% recyclable.Jamie Stone, co-lead of the PulPac partnership at PA Consulting, says: “Our collective is focused on bottles in every sector, not just soft drinks, though the soft drink space is highly relevant to us. While there are a few companies looking at fiber-based bottles, our technology is different as we use Dry Molded Fiber as the input.” 

“The lower use of water and so lower use of energy in our process means that we score brilliantly on lower carbon use, while also ensuring that the packs are collectible, recyclable and of additive value to the waste stream.” 

Stone says there are two main hurdles facing the industry now: 

Barrier requirements: “Our strategy of using an ultra-thin blown liner enables us to keep the product safe in manufacture, through shipping and retail until the consumer needs it. Importantly, it also keeps the fibers themselves clean and away from product contamination, ensuring that the packs are not only collectible and recyclable.”

Scalability: “We expect our collective members to have all-fiber bottles in the markets with reasonable volumes as soon as 2025. The challenge of developing and scaling a new world technology at such a pace isn’t for the faint-hearted.” 

Fighting greenwashing 
The struggle to improve recycling and return rates and remove toxic additives is part of a broader effort toward circularizing the economy and protecting consumers from dietary and environmental health hazards that will have more serious economic consequences in the long run. 

Increasing greenwashing legislation, which makes it easier for authorities to punish companies making false or misleading sustainability claims, is advancing the circular economy. 

“Lastly, organizations will need to ensure there is full transparency around all substances used in packaging within their own production processes and require similar transparency from their suppliers,” says Bradford. 

“It means developing a qualification plan and expected timelines for transitioning to new substances and ensuring procurement teams and processes are fully aligned. And it means mapping the commercial impact and being clear in how that impact is communicated with customers, especially when it may mean changes in costs and delivery times.” 

Recently, PET bottle producers came under scrutiny for advertising their bottles as “100% recyclable” when components like caps and labels are often not included in their assessments. Even on the body of the bottle, rPET rarely, if ever, reaches 100% since collection and recycling rates remain very low. 

But industry experts hit back at the accusations, saying that new innovations and regulations are set to increase recyclability rates, and product messaging like “100% recyclable” is meant to encourage consumers. 

By Louis Gore-Langton