> Home

Developing Sustainable Packaging Solutions

The following highlights our packaging efforts:

• Today—to reduce materials use and work with stakeholders to promote recycling
• Longer-term—to identify alternative packaging materials

We offer a wide variety of packaging sizes, from our eight-ounce bottles to our five-gallon containers. The plastics we use for packaging are PET in our single-serve water bottles; HDPE in our one-gallon and 2.5-gallon jugs; and polycarbonate plastic in our three-and five gallon bottles. These plastics are:

• Easily formed into a number of convenient sizes and shapes to appeal to our consumers’ differing needs
• Sealed to prevent contamination from outside sources
• Recyclable

However, like virtually all consumer products packaging, plastic has an environmental impact. We are taking a number of steps to reduce the impact of our packages.

Click to enlarge

Plastic, our primary packaging material, is a by-product of crude oil, a non-renewable resource. While oil is used today for many purposes, sustainability leaders differentiate between wasteful and wise uses of this resource. As fuel, oil is burned and unavailable for future use. As plastic, oil theoretically can be used again and again. Unfortunately, of the 21 million barrels of oil consumed in the U.S. each day, the majority, 86%, is burned for fuel. Nine percent is used to produce plastics and other synthetic products, and less than 0.1% is used in the manufacture PET water bottles.

Given that our primary packaging material is PET, we recognize the need to increase the capture of this valuable material for reuse. While our plastic beverage containers are recyclable, many end up in the solid-waste stream due to limitations on the reach of recycling programs and lack of education on the importance of recycling. This wastes a valuable resource that could be remade into new bottles or other plastic products.

Over the long-term, Nestlé Waters is committed to the development of “Next-Generation” packaging that will be made from recycled materials or renewable resources. However, this solution will take years to develop. In the meantime, we are committed to reducing the impact of our existing packages through a policy that advocates:

• REDUCE our energy and material use.
• REUSE materials left over from manufacturing, recycled content and products that can be used multiple times, such as our five-gallon bottles.
• RECYCLE materials in our plants and empty bottles through support for consumer recycling programs.

Today: Reducing Plastic and Paper Use in Our Packages

Because plastic resin production generates the largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions in our supply chain, decreasing the plastic in our packaging has a significant impact on reducing our total carbon footprint. Nestlé Waters has been a beverage industry pioneer in reducing the amount of plastics used to make bottles. In 2007, Nestlé Waters produced the lightest half-liter plastic bottle on the U.S. 2007 national survey of half-liter bottles across the water, soda and tea categories. Over fiscal years 2007 and 2008, this Eco-Shape® bottle will use 140 million fewer pounds of plastic resin, and help Nestlé Waters avoid 260,000 metric tons of GHG emissions.

The journey to reduce plastic has been a long-term commitment. From 2000-2006, before Eco-Shape®, we reduced the amount of PET in our bottles by 40%, avoiding the use of 260 million pounds of plastics.

The reduction efforts go beyond the bottles themselves. By making our Eco-Shape labels smaller, Nestlé Waters will save almost 10 million pounds of paper per year—the equivalent of 30,000 trees. In our half-liter multipacks, we reduced the shrink-wrapping volume by 14% over the last three years and eliminated about 35 million pounds of cardboard in the past decade.

Today: Promoting Recycling

Even though our PET and HDPE bottles are 100% recyclable, many still end up in the waste stream, because it is not convenient for consumers to recycle them or they do not take advantage of existing recycling systems. Approximately half of all Americans do not have access to curbside recycling pickup at home, and many public places do not have recycling available for people on the go. So, while water bottles account for only about 0.3% of solid waste in the U.S., we believe that far too many water bottles end up being thrown away, as do a wide variety of other plastic containers for food, beverage and other consumer products.

We believe we have a responsibility to increase recycling rates in the U.S. and Canada. One of our top priorities today is working with state governments, recycling stakeholders and other businesses on improving programs that would make it easier for consumers to recycle all types of plastic containers, from bottled beverages to detergent to peanut butter, that currently end up in the waste stream.

To help encourage this evolution, Nestlé Waters is actively working with a variety of stakeholders to develop a closed-loop recycling system, including participating on the American Beverage Association’s Recycling Task Force