PepsiCo has announced that they plan to triple the amount of recycled plastic used in their bottles throughout the European Union by 2023. The announcement comes after the European Commission’s voluntary recycled plastics pledging campaign. The campaign will see that over ten million tonnes of Europe’s recycled plastic will be used to make new future products by 2025.
The pledge will see PepsiCo use rPET in its European beverage brands such as Pepsi, 7Up, Tropicana and Naked brands which will hopefully amount to 50,000 tonnes of rPET.
“At PepsiCo, we take our responsibility to protect the environment seriously and are steadfast in our commitment to finding sustainable ways to create our products. Developing an effective, long-term approach to sustainable packaging requires a multifaceted effort, and PepsiCo is committed to collaborating with the many stakeholders involved to ensure it succeeds in developing a Circular Economy for plastics into the future,” said Silviu Popovici, president, PepsiCo Europe Sub-Saharan Africa.
“With severe under-capacity in the supply of affordable recycled plastics suitable for food packaging, we call on public and private stakeholders in the recycling system, including the European Commission, to join us and make the needed investments to expand recycling capacity.
Currently, only 13 percent of PepsiCo’s EU beverage operations use rPET.
