Why Plastic?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Plastic has strong "second life" potential

There’s a reason why so many products are packaged in plastic: it’s safe, lightweight, transparent, and unbreakable. Plus, plastic can be recycled and used again. The plastic in our half-liter water bottles is made from PET, which stands for polyethylene terephthalate. This mixture of plastic resin and polyester gives PET its durability.

PET is considered to be one of the best packaging materials. Its lightweight, stable and has a lighter footprint than other packaging materials like glass and aluminum. PET is also approved as safe by the FDA.

Start with Plastic
Break It Down
Start with
Plastic – Again!
Compare: PET to
Bioplastics

Start with Plastic

Plastic is our primary packaging material. It’s made from a byproduct of crude oil, a nonrenewable resource. While oil is used today in many ways, experts make distinction between wasteful and wise uses of this resource. As fuel, oil is burned and unavailable for future use. But in bottles, it can be used over and over again. When used in plastic, its "second life" possibilities are many.

Break it Down

Plastic can be broken down, recycled, and reused indefinitely. While we continue to monitor new developments and future feasibility of other packaging materials, PET is currently one of the better options to keep our impact low.

Today, most bioplastics require more energy and water to produce than PET and the overall carbon impact is uncertain. And according to cradle-to-grave analyses of carbon impact, PET is still better than aluminum and glass.*

*www.napcor.com/pdf/Env_Impact.pdf

Start with Plastic – Again!

Since 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 being thrown away because of the 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. That’s why we’re working hard to make recycling easier.

Here are just a few examples of the many products made from recycled PET:

carpet and polar fleece
fiberfill for sleeping bags and jackets
backpacks, bags
apparel like hats, shoes, shirts
food containers and household containers
office chairs and park benches
automotive parts

Compare: PET to Bioplastics

Today, PET is an excellent material in terms of protecting product quality and integrity while also providing the strength and durability required for the production process. From an environmental perspective, PET bottles are 100% recyclable and thereby are a store house of energy that can be reused time after time simply by recycling to make other bottles, carpets, clothing etc. Additionally, PET bottles do not contain BPA.

Nestlé Waters North America has an active program studying new packaging materials that may be more sustainable and equally safe and reliable from the perspective of safeguarding consumer health. Today’s biodegradable bottles, which are typically made from corn (poly lactic acid) , raise several concerns:

They cannot be recycled in the same recycle stream as PET or other plastics and therefore can contaminate the plastic recycling stream.
These materials are only biodegradable in an industrial compost facility that requires higher heat and special conditions not found in a typical home/town composting facility, so these bottles go into landfills where they typically remains for a long time e.g some newspapers that were landfilled a hundred years ago can still be clearly read!
They do not hold up well in production and may deform in hot temperatures such as warehouses or when exposed to hot sun.
Water loss in the bottle is significant within a short period of time on the shelf as it easily passes from the inside to the outside and evaporates. For this reason, a heavy bottle with a thick wall is required.
The bottle has a higher carbon and water footprint than PET because it is more energy intensive to make and transport and more water intensive as growing corn requires intensive irrigation.
PLA bottle manufacturing consumes precious water resources and also potentially shift resources from the food supply (corn shortage or higher prices).