Set, miss, repeat – big brands and plastic recycling targets

Coca-Cola Consolidated

05/10/2020 12:00

(This story accompanies a Special Report - Plastic Pandemic:
COVID-19 trashed the recycling dream  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2GU05T)
    By Joe Brock
    Oct 5 (Reuters) - Coca-Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo, the world's
top three plastic polluters according to a yearly brand audit by
NGO Break Free From Plastic, have struggled for decades to
increase the share of recycled plastic in their packaging.
    In 1990, PepsiCo introduced a new plastic bottle with 25%
recycled content. By the end of that decade the company said its
bottles no longer contained any recycled content.
    Coca-Cola began making plastic bottles in the United States
with 25% recycled plastic. It phased them out in 1994 due to
high costs, officials said then. 
    Coke and Pepsi declined to comment on these past targets. 
    In 2008, Nestle, the company behind Nescafe coffee and Pure
Life water, set a U.S.-wide goal to make water bottles out of
60% recycled plastic within a decade.
    That's a goal the company says was never met. Nestle told
Reuters it was an ambitious target that didn't get the
groundswell of industry and policy-maker support it needed. 
    Coke and Nestle said it is hard to get the plastic they need
from recycled sources; Nestle said it often pays a premium for
recycled material. 
    All three companies made new pledges in 2018: 
    - Coca-Cola set a target to hit 50% recycled content in all
packaging by 2030. Currently, it's at 20%, and about half that
rate for PET plastic, it told Reuters.
    - PepsiCo said it would use 25% recycled content in
packaging by 2025. It told Reuters in September it had reached
4% as of 2019. 
    - Nestle said it aims to use 15% recycled plastic in its
packaging by 2025. The company told Reuters this is at 3%
currently, up from 2% when it made the pledge.

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Plastic pandemic: COVID-19 trashed the recycling dream   
 ID:nL4N2GU05T 
Multimedia version of this story    https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-plastic-recycling/
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 (Reporting by Joe Brock
Edited by Sara Ledwith)
 ((Joe.brock@thomsonreuters.com;))