Danone has announced its aim to make all Evian bottles from 100% recycled plastic by 2025, which will see the mineral water brand adopt a ‘circular’ approach to plastic usage.
In what it claims is a pioneering move, Evian has invested to remove plastic waste and the need for virgin plastic from its production.
Using PET sourced from third-party vendors of waste plastic, Evian will work with “breakthrough technology companies” including Loop Industries of Canada, which Danone said was “poised to disrupt the global plastics industry”.
Loop’s propriety tech would soon allow for PET bottles to be recycled “time and again”, eliminating the risk of degradation, said James Pearson, general manager for Danone Waters UK & Ireland. Evian had worked over the past 10 years on reducing its environmental impact and now wanted to “take a leadership position” on plastic recycling.
Evian bottles currently contain about 25% recycled plastic. To achieve 100%, including lids, the brand has struck partnerships with sustainability organisations such as The Ocean Cleanup and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which in 2016 reported that “close to half” of PET globally was not collected for recycling, and only 7% was recycled bottle-to-bottle.
Evian also has agreed a tie-up with Vice Impact, the ‘advocacy’ channel of Vice Media, to raise consumer awareness from early 2018 of plastic recycling through video and editorial content. “Here in the UK, we have a big opportunity to drive behavioural change around recycling,” said Pearson.
Danone’s announcement this morning (18 January) comes a day after the EU unveiled its plan to reduce plastic waste across Europe by clamping down on single-use plastic containers and ensuring that by 2030 all plastic packaging is recyclable or reusable.
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