PACKAGING 91
Packaging innovation Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA) continues to invest in improving its environmental performance, with the objective of having the industry’s lightest environmental footprint per unit of product. One priority is the bottle itself, and the company has made progress in reducing the bottle’s environmental footprint by introducing innovative, lighter-weight packaging. The carbon embedded in the purchased PET resin for the bottle accounted for 55 percent of NWNA’s greenhouse gas emissions, so in the 15 years to 2007, NWNA reduced the amount of PET plastic in its bottles by 40 percent.
The EcoShape bottle, launched in 2007, achieved a further 14 percent reduction in plastic used, and weighs only 12.5 grams on average. It remains the lightest branded half-litre bottle on the US market. We estimate that it will save more than 88 million kg of resin and help avoid more than 356 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions from its launch to the end of 2009. The company plans to reduce plastic in its half-litre bottles by an additional 15 percent by 2010. In addition, since 1994, NWNA has manufactured 98 percent of its PET packaging in its plants, saving the energy required to ship 160,000 truckloads of empty bottles to its sites.
This investment in packaging technology is backed up by a commitment to recycling. The returnable bottles for its US Direct-to-Home & Office business get used 35 times. When their useful life is up, the majority are recycled into products such as lawn furniture, synthetic lumber and outdoor sheds. In terms of public recycling, the US only has about a 25 percent plastic recycle rate and about half of Americans have access to kerbside recycling. A lot is about education and changing habits. NWNA is advancing the goal of a minimum 60 percent recycling rate for PET beverage bottles by 2018 through partnerships, coalition-building, consumer education, improved kerbside recycling programmes and policy initiatives.
Source: www.nestle.com
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX.indd 91
07/01/2011 15:19