PepsiCo has joined the NaturALL Bottle Alliance, a research consortium formed by Danone, Nestlé Waters and Origin Materials to speed up the development of packaging solutions made with 100% sustainable and renewable resources.
Image: Plastic bottles. Photo: courtesy of Gabriella Fabbri/freeimages.com.
Formed in 2017, the NaturALL Bottle alliance aims to create renewable and sustainable packaging solutions which significantly reduce the carbon impact of plastic beverage bottles for the food and beverage industry.
The alliance is currently working to produce a PET bottle made purely from biomass feedstocks such as cardboard and sawdust and has already produced samples of 80% bio-based PET for a pilot scheme.
PepsiCo vice-chairman and chief scientific officer Mehmood Khan said: “Producing PET from sustainable bio-based sources that do not diminish food resources and are fully recyclable is a great example of such innovation and an important contributor to PepsiCo’s sustainable packaging program.
“Through our Performance with Purpose agenda, PepsiCo is committed to reducing the carbon impact of packaging in line with our goal to reduce absolute emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% by 2030; bio-based PET has the potential to reduce significantly the carbon footprint of our PET bottles, a huge contribution to our efforts in this area.”
The consortium expects to achieve a 95% bio-based bottle following the construction and upgrade of a production site in Sarnia, Canada, and achieve full commercial-scale soon after.
Expected to have a capacity of 18,000 tons of biomass, the facility is scheduled to be completed in 2020.
Origin Materials CEO John Bissell said: “Through the combined efforts of its members, the NaturALL Bottle Alliance is setting the bar for sustainability for an entire industry.”
Nestlé Waters’ research and development head Massimo Casella said: “The Alliance has taken an important step in working together to tackle the challenges around plastic packaging. Developing 100% bio-based PET is one way Nestlé is working to use more materials from sustainably managed renewable resources.”
The alliance will continue to work on the project to increase the level of bio-based content in the bio-based beverage container to reach 100%.