THE RESOURCE^® CHALLENGE

RESOURCE^®: WORKING TOWARD 100% RECYCLED PACKAGING

Back in the 70s, when the environmental movement began bringing to the public’s attention the amount of waste making its way into landfills across the country, plastics became of particular concern because they’re not biodegradable. The solution to this problem was and continues to be recycling.

Reducing Waste

For three decades now, tremendous strides have been made in the field of recycling. But, Nestlé Waters CEO Kim Jeffrey thought there was even more Nestlé Waters North America could do to address the issue of waste. The company had been working for years to cut the amount of plastic in its packaging, reducing it more than 30%; however, Nestlé Waters North America wanted to do even more to support the environment by developing a closed-loop production of bottled water, where the packaging is manufactured entirely from recycled plastic and then recycled by the consumer where it will be reprocessed in a more energy-efficient manner and made into new PET bottles.

Saving Energy

The desire to create a sustainable method of production forged a partnership between Nestlé Waters North America and other companies who shared our passion. Factories were reconfigured to accommodate the new production methods and the new bottled water was branded resource^® natural spring water. In less than 2 years, recycled bottled content went from 25% to 50%, with the ultimate goal of producing a bottle from 100% recycled plastics and tripling consumer recycle rates.

Student Support

To increase recycling rates among consumers, there needs to be more awareness and a stronger interest in reducing waste as well as more infrastructure to support recycling. Students are great conduits of this information because they are passionate about the cause. In fact, Nestlé Waters North America, with the help of Net Impact and a leading waste management corporation solicited the advice of college students nationwide and tasked them with creating recycling programs for their individual campus. These programs are helping to make a difference. We hope that your university will join us by implementing similar recycling measures—offering resource^® on campus is a great first step.