Nestlé signs up to the European Plastics Pact

The pact, which was originally a joint initiative by France and the Netherlands, brings together many leading businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government representatives, with the aim of going beyond current legislation.
 
Its 2025 targets include: reducing virgin plastics products and packaging by at least 20%; increasing collection and recycling capacity for plastics packaging around Europe by at least 25%; and lifting levels of recycled plastics in packaging to at least 30%.
 
Marco Settembrini, the company’s CEO for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, said: “One of our joint objectives is to create a circular economy by improving collection, sorting and recycling schemes across Europe. Already today, a new Vittel plastic bottle is manufactured out of used ones.”

 He added that the company wanted to ensure that, tomorrow, its “wrappers and pouches” could also be recycled into new food packaging.
 
This would not be easy, Nestlé admitted, and would necessitate the evolution of recycling processes. Challenges include the fact that packaging produced from virgin plastics is cheaper than recycled content, it added. To help bridge this gap, the company recently announced more than CHF1.5 billion ($1.56bn) of investment in recycled food-grade plastics.