Switzerland-based food and drink company Nestlé has collaborated with global resource management firm Veolia to tackle plastics leakage into the environment and develop recycling schemes.
Image: Nestlé headquarters in Vevey, Switzerland. Photo: courtesy of flickr / Nestlé.
Under the partnership, Nestlé and Veolia will work on waste collection, sorting and recycling of plastic material, with a specific foucs on flexible plastic packaging.
The partnership will design projects to focus on 11 priority countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.
Nestlé operations head and executive vice president Magdi Batato said:”Plastic waste is a challenge that requires an ecosystem of solutions all working simultaneously. This partnership is another specific step to accelerate our efforts in addressing the critical issue of plastic waste.
“Leveraging on Veolia’s technology and expertise, we will start with pilot projects in multiple countries, with the intention of scaling these up globally.”
Both firms intend to develop technologies to create viable models of recycling in different countries.
Nestlé and Veolia will focus on the development of recycling technologies such as pyrolysis, which will help produce virgin quality plastic.
The technologies will facilitate Nestlé to increase the recycled content of its bottled water packaging to 35% and its overall product packaging to 15% by 2025.
The partnership with Veolia is said to follow a series of specific initiatives and steps to accelerate action to tackle plastic waste and is in line with Nestlé’s commitment to make 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.
Veolia innovation and markets development senior executive vice-president Laurent Auguste said: “Our expertise in resource recovery and recycling has positioned us to tackle this issue with global brands and other value-chain actors, across all continents.
“We believe it is time to move towards more recycling of materials and we are happy to help our clients be ever more inventive so they can keep improving our quality of life, whilst protecting our planet and its resources.”
With around 169 000 employees across the globe, Veolia group offers water, waste and energy management solutions for the sustainable development of communities and industries.