Nestlé Waters North America Inc. is launching a new range of mineral water in the United States in bottles consisting of 25 percent recycled PET and is backing the move with a recycling initiative.
The Re-Source brand will be sold exclusively at Whole Foods Market, where shoppers will be encouraged to recycle the bottles at in-store collection points.
Nestlé says it will use collected plastic to produce items such as fleece, reusable shopping bags, carpet and new plastic beverage bottles. The Greenwich, Conn.-based company also has pledged to donate 5 cents from every bottle to Keep America Beautiful.
Whole Foods spokesman Michael Besancon said the company supported Nestlé's initiative because “businesses should assume their responsibility as tenants of planet earth.”
The Re-Source program will start in California and Arizona and roll out to the rest of the U.S. later this year.
Nestlé is the latest global beverage company to sign up to recycled PET. Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. has pledged to use 25 percent recycled PET in its U.S. bottles by 2015. Coke in February opened a $45 million PET recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C.
Paris-based Groupe Danone in July signed a recycled PET supply contract with recycler France Plastiques Recyclage of Limay, France.
Danone uses an average of 25 percent recycled PET in its Evian and Volvic bottles and plans to increase that to 50 percent by the end of 2009.
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