USA – PepsiCo, Inc. (PepsiCo) has announced a new packaging goal to use 25% recycled content in its plastic packaging by 2025, a part of its sustainable plastics vision.
The company said it will ensure this through collaborations with suppliers and partners geared towards increasing consumer education, fostering cross-industry and public-private partnerships, and advocating for improved recycling infrastructure and regulatory reform.
The ambition includes an aim specific to PET (polyethylene terephthalate) beverage bottles to achieve 33% recycled PET content by 2025.
“PepsiCo’s sustainable plastics vision is to build a PepsiCo where plastics need never become waste.
We intend to achieve that vision by reducing, recycling and reusing, and reinventing our plastic packaging – and leading global change through partnerships,” said Dr. Mehmood Khan, Vice Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer at PepsiCo.
“Already, PepsiCo is one of the world’s largest users of food-grade recycled PET.
To further boost recycled content across all plastic packaging and drive progress towards a circular economy for plastics, it is vital to dramatically increase global waste collection and recycling rates through investment in recycling infrastructure and technology.”
In 2016, PepsiCo announced a new goal under its Performance with Purpose 2025 Agenda which strives to design 100% of its packaging to be recyclable, compostable or biodegradable.
The agenda also looks to increase its use of recycled materials; reduce the carbon impact of its packaging and; in partnership with the PepsiCo Foundation, to work to increase recycling rates.
It entered into a multi-year supply agreement with Loop last month to incorporate Loop PET plastic, 100% recycled material, into its product packaging by mid-2020.
In September 2018, PepsiCo announced it would collaborate in the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), led by the World Economic Forum that works to redesign waste management systems for a circular model.
This year in June, PepsiCo Foundation and The Recycling Partnership, announced the launch of “All in on Recycling,” the largest ever industry-wide residential recycling challenge to make it easier for 25 million families across the US to recycle.
It is also one of the global food and beverage giants that joined the 250-member alliance, New Plastics Economy Global Commitment that seeks to establish a circular economy for plastics.
