The Swiss-based food and beverage giant Nestlé announced that it would invest $2 billion in technology to source recycled plastic for packaging its products. Nestlé plans to reduce its use of new plastics by one-third in the next five years and make all packaging recyclable.
Most of Nestlé’s bottles and food are packaged with plastic. The company is regularly criticized for being one of the top plastic polluters in the world. To help with the plastic pollution crisis, Nestlé has vowed to make all of its packaging 100% recyclable by 2025. Nestlé already has some products with recyclable packaging including YES! bars.
Mark Schneider, Nestlé’s Chief Executive, said:
We are high up on the list because we are one of the largest companies out there in packaged goods, and now, we’re also taking pretty big steps in using our size to actually solve the problem.
However, there are some downfalls. It’s estimated that only 9% of recyclable plastic gets recycled. As developing countries refuse to accept more plastic, the market for recyclable plastics has dried up. Companies will sometimes say a product is recyclable even though they know it isn’t.
Nestlé will also invest in making recycled plastic food-safe and will pay the market rate for recycled plastic as a way to motivate manufacturers to make recycled products suitable for packaging and beverages. “Food quality and safety are paramount, and packaging plays a major role in assuring this,” said Nestlé.
Schneider explained:
Making recycled plastics safe for food is an enormous challenge for our industry. That is why in addition to minimizing plastics use and collecting waste, we want to close the loop and make more plastics infinitely recyclable.
In 2018, Nestlé’s overall plastic packaging usage weighed in at 1.7 million metric tons, of which only 2% got recycled. According to Break Free From Plastic, an advocacy group, Nestlé was ranked with Pepsi and Coca Cola as the world’s top plastic polluting brands. Nestlé’s Chief Technology Officer Stefan Palzer acknowledged the environmental damage and said, “at the moment, outside PET bottles, there’s not a lot of recycled plastic available that is suitable for packaging food.”
Campaigner at Greenpeace Switzerland, Matthias Wüthrich said:
It is encouraging that Nestlé has finally committed to reducing its reliance on virgin plastic. If Nestlé wants to stop polluting the world, it needs to end its reliance on plastic.
However, Nestlé doesn’t plan to abandon its reliance on plastic altogether.
