Jan 20, 2020
“No plastic should end up in landfill or as litter,”
Swiss food giant Nestle is about to invest 2 billion Swiss francs (1.8 billion euros, $2.1 billion) within five years to cut its use of virgin plastics in favour of food-grade recycled plastics.
Making recycled plastics safe for food is an enormous challenge for the industry. That is why in addition to minimising plastics use and collecting waste, Nestle wants to close the loop and make more plastics infinitely recyclable.
The company also plans to invest in new types of sustainable packaging to meet its target of making all its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.
In the next five years Nestle would lessen its use of virgin plastics by one third alsomake a venture fund with 250 million Swiss francs to capitalize in start-up companies working in the recycling sector.
To create a market for recycled plastics, it said it would source up to 2 million metric tons of food-grade recycled plastics and allocated more than 1.5 billion Swiss francs to pay a premium for the material between now and 2025.
Food and cosmetics giant Unilever announced last September that it will cut its use of new plastic in packaging by half by 2025, acknowledging that the move was partly aimed at young, more environmentally conscious customers.
Fast food giant McDonald’s pledged in October to speed up moves to minimise the use of plastic in its restaurants in Europe.