SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — Nestlé Waters, manufacturer of Arrowhead brand bottled water, has committed to using 50 percent recycled content in its water bottles, according to Californians Against Waste.
The bottle's shape design will require 15 percent less energy to produce and will be made with 50 percent recycled PET. Most of the recycled material for the ReBorn bottles will be provided by CarbonLite Industries LLC, a Los Angeles recycler.
"Nestlé's leadership in plastic recycling and product stewardship is real," said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, in a statement. "Nestlé is making a serious investment in closed loop recycling that will pay dividends for consumers, the economy and the environment."
California collects approximately 70 percent of plastic beverage bottles for recycling. More than 200 million pounds of recycled PET is now being processed and sold for manufacturing by California companies, with the capacity to increase that number to 300 million pounds, the report said.
"PET plastic can be used indefinitely and the best value is to restore to high-grade bottles," said Nestlé CEO Kim Jeffery in a statement last year. "It improves our carbon footprint whenever we can make a more renewable product. We would encourage the food and beverage industry to use [recycled] PET in their bottles."