Nestlé’s Belgian mineral water brand, Valvert, has launched a bottle made entirely from recycled PET (rPET). The game-changing new bottle marks an important milestone in Nestlé journey to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or re-usable by 2025. The new bottle, a first for Nestlé, is made of 100% recycled PET or rPET. This means Valvert only uses old bottles to produce the new bottle, and no new virgin PET needs to be created. Valvert has been able to secure a reliable supply of the high-quality, food-grade rPET that is required for bottled water.
Emmanuel Gruffat, General Manager of Nestlé Waters Benelux, said: “We believe the new Valvert 100% rPET bottle is a gamechanger in the next generation of sustainable packaging, stimulating a bottle-to-bottle circular economy. This new initiative shows our commitment to our pledge to further improve our collection and recycling rates, developing new schemes and driving new behaviors.”
Nestlé has made some remarkable achievements in its efforts towards safeguarding the environment and acting on climate change. On World Environment Day this year, the company released figures listing their progress. Since 2010 Nestlé Middle East has achieved a 42% reduction in water withdrawal per ton of product, a 34% decrease in energy consumption, and 28% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, while its production went up by 68%. The company has also achieved zero waste for disposal at its food manufacturing sites in the Middle East.
On a global scale, Nestlé’s packaging ambition, announced in April this year, is to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or re-usable by 2025. As well as delivering on its 2025 commitment, Nestlé has a longer-term ambition to stop plastic leakage into the environment across its global operations. This will help avoid further accumulation of plastics in nature and achieve plastic neutrality.
Research and multi-sectoral partnerships are also being developed, with recent examples including the creation of the Nestlé Institute of Packaging Science to evaluate and develop new sustainable packaging material and solutions in collaboration with academia, supplier, startups, and others. This will ensure all of the company’s packaging across the world is recyclable or reusable by 2025.
Nestlé is playing an active role in developing plastics collection, sorting and recycling schemes across the Middle East, where it’s contributing to industry coalitions that aim to create circular economies within countries, recycling and reusing in a manner that creates shared value for all involved.
Valvert, still natural mineral water which gushes from a source in Belgium’s lush green Gaume region in the Ardennes deep in the forest of Etalle, is wholly committed to shaping a more sustainable future for the next generations. In 2018, Etalle’s farmers, Nestlé Waters, and the Etalle local administration signed an agreement to protect the Valvert source and the surrounding environment through sustainable farming. As a result, the 10 farmers use zero pesticides, no chemicals, and Nestlé Waters supports the farmers by providing training and advice from experienced agronomists and bio-engineers.
