The sustainable move is expected to help Slovenian mineral water firm to minimise its carbon emissions by up to 90%
Donat has replaced PET and glass bottles with Alpla’s rPET bottles. (Credit: ALPLA)
Slovenian mineral water company Donat has replaced its PET and glass bottles with Alpla’s recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottles, as part of its sustainable efforts.
Alpla commenced the use of green rPET bottles to replace the virgin-material PET and glass bottles generally used by Donat, as part of the green to green approach.
The sustainable move is expected to help Slovenian mineral water firm to minimise its carbon emissions by up to 90%.
According to Alpla, Donat’s use of rPET bottles are said to result in an annual saving of around one million litres of drinking water and up to 98,000kWh of electricity.
Alpla will collect green bottles in Slovenia and recycle them at the company’s recycling facility located in Wöllersdorf, Austria.
Later, these bottles will be used as new rPET mineral water bottles.
Donat uses around 35 million bottles per annum, of which 30% include 0.5-litre bottles and 70% include one-litre bottles.
To meet all of Donat’s rPET bottle requirements, approximately 1,300 tonnes of green bottles have to be collected per annum, said Alpla.
Alpla multi-country manager Primoz Agrez said: “We have been involved in closed-loop recycling in Slovenia since 2014 and we turn four to five thousand tonnes of Slovenian PET bottles into rPET at PET Recycling Team in Wöllersdorf.
“When the opportunity arose for us to use green rPET for the Donat bottles, we seized it and began to collect and separate these bottles, which would normally end up in non-food recycling.
“The result is a sustainable recycling project with a long-term partnership and a win-win situation for both companies.”
In February this year, Alpla announced plans to invest around €50m per annum on an average between this year and 2025 to further expand its recycling operations.