“Images of discarded beverage bottles have become the symbol of a necessary debate around plastic use, and one of the reasons is that people don’t consider PET valuable†says Muriel Lienau, CEO of Nestlé Waters in Europe.â€
Images of discarded beverage bottles have become the symbol of a necessary debate around plastic use, and one of the reasons is that people don’t consider PET valuable†she says. “To be very clear: it is unacceptable that any packaging is littered. No packaging should end up in the environment; not in landfills nor oceans.â€
“To be very clear: it is unacceptable that any packaging is littered. No packaging should end up in the environment; not in landfills nor oceans†she says, “and it’s up to us in the industry to try to ensure our bottles get returned and recycled, rather than thrown away.â€
This has become a core mission for Nestlé Waters, as one of the key ways it is looking to support the environment. The company believes there is value in PET bottles, especially if they are properly collected and recycled.
That’s why Nestlé Waters is paying close attention to the upcoming review of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, expected later this year. The European Commission wants to update the law to bring it in line with the EU’s wider circular economy and European Green Deal policies.
Lienau explains what’s at stake and how Nestlé Waters can help make a difference.
Q. What are your key messages to EU policymakers ahead of the upcoming review of the directive?
A. We share the same ambitions as the European Commission — a well-functioning circular economy is a central success factor for our business. Natural mineral water is a product of nature, created sometimes over hundreds or thousands of years, it is unique to its geology and must by law be bottled at source. Protecting this natural product is key, and food grade PET plastic is the ideal packaging material for it: it’s lightweight and fully recyclable. PET from beverage bottles is already the most widely collected and recycled plastic material, with over 60 percent across Europe, and with above 90 percent in countries with Deposit Return Systems. But this still needs to be improved further to ensure a bottle-to-bottle, circular approach.
The revision of the packaging directive is an opportunity to improve a number of things. We need a clear differentiation between virgin and recycled material in the legislation. We also need a regulatory framework across Europe that incentivizes the high use of recycled content in food packaging.
That is where we count on the Commission to give the discussion on circularity a push in the right direction to ensure every PET bottle remains in the closed loop.
Q. Looking back, what has the directive helped achieve so far across the EU and where did things not go as smoothly?
A. The Single Use Plastics Directive and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive have helped shift attention and energy toward the circular economy, and support the bold commitments already set out by our sector to improve its packaging footprint by reaching full circularity. But we’re concerned that the current directive also led to a variety of restrictions and even local bans on fully recyclable packaging with recycled content, which is not necessarily the best way to help reduce carbon emissions or littering. Avoiding a patchwork of disparate national measures is key to achieving circularity.
Q. What are some of the biggest misconceptions around PET in the public debate?
A. The biggest one is that PET is a “single use plastic†— that’s not accurate. It is not only the perfect material to protect our product, natural mineral water, but it is the material with the best potential to be reused in a closed loop. We do not want our packaging to be littered, it’s a perfectly circular material. If collected properly and used for new bottles, PET bottles even come with a favorable environmental footprint compared to other materials.  Using more and more recycled PET for new bottles helps us reduce carbon emissions and littering significantly, creating an endless loop of circular bottles.
Q. What are some policies that could help Nestlé Waters and the wider industry boost their re-use of PET bottles?
A. First, we need to ensure that PET bottles are collected and recycled. We clearly favor deposit return systems, as these provide the fastest way to increased quality and quantity of collected materials. This is when the seller collects a fee at the point of purchase which goes back to the consumer when the bottle is returned. These systems not only help prevent littering, but a deposit ensures that bottles are collected separately and are available for high quality recycling, to produce new bottles and to reduce the consumption of new, so- called virgin, plastic. We believe these should be managed as non-profit and centrally run in the market, to ensure the focus on well running systems. The Commission needs to give guidance to member countries to boost the functioning of these systems in more countries.
Furthermore, we are currently facing an increasing demand for recycled PET for nonfood purposes, including textiles or automotive industries. This means the material is harder to access for circular bottles, dropping out of the loop and there’s more need for virgin PET. This is means recycled material is effectively ‘down-cycled’ and is detrimental to a circular economy. As a sector, we need our bottles back to be able to recycle them into new bottles – also to achieve, or overachieve, the 25 percent target set for the EU. We believe that priority access for the beverage industry to recycled PET from the collected bottles is key to fully circular economy. With supportive policy the industry can continue to reduce the amount of new (virgin) plastic entering the system and ensure that every bottle eventually becomes another bottle.
Last but not least, the current Single Use Plastic Directive, does not clearly distinguish between virgin and recycled material. Even bottles with high recycled content of 50 percent or more can be the subject to bans or restrictions, depending on the national implementation. We believe that these circular bottles – with a high recycled content, over 50 percent – should be recognized as environmentally favorable packaging and not considered single use plastics.
Q. Some EU countries are already a few steps ahead in dealing with single-use plastic — what are some key things to pay attention to in those places?
A. We believe that packaging policies, be they at the EU level or in the member countries, should enable business operators to continue using and innovating environmentally favorable packaging solutions. This means there shouldn’t be a focus on bans or mandatory targets for specific solutions, such as reuse or refill quotas. As Natural Mineral Water can only come from a single geographical source and legally has to be bottled at source, reuse for refill is not necessarily the best option for the environment. We believe that any targets should allow operators to choose the solution that is delivering the best environmental performance related to their business model. To improve circularity, we would rather like to see stronger national efforts to enable a circular economy and improve collection and recycling and harmonize sorting labels for consumers.
Q. How do you see the use of PET bottles transforming over the next decades?
A. PET as a perfectly circular packaging material will definitely continue to play a major role for beverage bottles — due to its good functionality for protecting the product and its favorable environmental properties. We currently do not see a better alternative material on the market, especially if we look at the carbon footprint and the recyclability.
In line with technological improvements, we are exploring potentials to include scalable bio-based PET in our bottles. And we’re working with others in our industry to support and advance innovative PET recycling technologies, like that of Carbios, to help increase the amount of PET that can be recycled. These new technologies will certainly if developed to industrial scale help to reduce the use of new PET plastics and ultimately reduce our CO2 emissions.
References
Eunomia. (2022). Pet market in Europe: state of play 2022. Available at: https://naturalmineralwaterseurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Eunomia_-PET-market-in-Europe-2022.pdf
