NESTLÉ Waters UK and sustainable waste management firm, Biffa, have announced a new partnership to help drive a circular economy for plastics in the UK.
Biffa will be supporting Nestlé to achieve its commitment of making every Buxton bottle from 100% recycled PET by 2021, by collecting recylcable PET bottles and reprocessing them in the UK into rPET.
Nestlé said the partnership will enable them to ‘significantly’ reduce the amount of virgin plastic in circulation and lead the shift to using high-quality food-grade recycled PET in the UK, which, at the moment, is sourced from Europe.
Biffa has set a target to quadruple its plastic recycling by 2030, and the rPET supplied to Nestlé Waters will come from the company’s new £27.5m plastic recycling facility in Seaham, County Durham. The firm said that the plant has the capacity to process the equivalent of 1.3 billion plastic bottles each year.
Michel Beneventi, managing director at Nestlé Waters UK, said, “This is a hugely significant step forwards in achieving our commitment of making our Buxton range from 100% rPET. By working together, sharing expertise across our companies to advance PET recycling for circularity, I believe we can be a force for good, helping to create positive, long-lasting impact and change for the planet.
“Having access to a local rPET supply reduces the carbon footprint of producing, sourcing and transporting our packaging from outside the UK and demonstrates the value that plastic drinks bottles have when they are recycled.
“Nestlé Waters has ambitious commitments to sustainability, with a pledge for all its brands to be carbon neutral by 2025. This collaboration with Biffa is a big step towards helping us achieve that and making a circular system for plastics a reality.
“We are very proud of our collaboration and what we will can achieve by working together.”
Chris Hanlon, commercial manager at Biffa, added, “At Biffa, a key pillar of our sustainability strategy is to help build a circular economy in the UK, part of which is to help our customers develop sustainable packaging that can fit into the closed-loop recycling system that we are working to develop. The collaboration with Nestlé Waters UK is a great example of this strategy in action, using recycled plastic to manufacture plastic bottles for resale. It demonstrates that when used correctly, plastic can have a sustainable role in modern life and we’re very much looking forward to working with Nestlé Waters UK and helping it to achieve its recycling goals.”
