Last updated on June 13th, 2024
Nestlé Waters North America has signed an agreement with recycled PET plastic (rPET) supplier CarbonLite Industries LLC under which CarbonLite will expand its U.S. operations by building a third facility in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania. RPET stands for recycled polyethylene terephthalate known as recycled PET. PET is a strong, durable and recyclable material used for soda bottles, water bottles and food jars.
The new contract builds on Nestlé Waters’ existing relationship with CarbonLite, one of the largest producers of food-grade, post-consumer rPET. It allows Nestlé to expand the use of recycled materials in its packaging. The company currently purchases rPET from CarbonLite’s existing facilities in California and Texas.
“We are pleased that CarbonLite will be locating a facility in a region important to our manufacturing footprint,” says Bill Trackim, VP and head of supply chain and procurement at Nestlé Waters North America. “Being able to purchase rPET in the area helps us better support the regional economy while promoting environmental sustainability through the use of renewable and recyclable materials in our packaging.”
CarbonLite anticipates the facility will be in full production by early 2020 and will have the ability to recycle more than 2 billion post-consumer bottles a year. The new 200,000-s.f. processing facility is anticipated to save 60,000 tons of carbon annually by using post-consumer materials and produce 80 million pounds of food-grade rPET pellets per year.
“Nestlé Waters continues to be a leader in their sustainability efforts,” says Leon Farahnik, chairman of CarbonLite. “We are proud to have grown with them for the past seven years and proud to expand our relationship in our state of the art facility in Pennsylvania.”
Nestlé Waters, which has two bottling facilities in the Lehigh Valley, uses recycled plastic in a number of its brands, including Nestlé Pure Life and Deer Park, which are bottled locally. The company has been increasing the amount of rPET it uses in its packaging since 2011, and in February of this year, Nestlé Waters launched a 700ml Nestlé Pure Life bottle made of 100 percent rPET. In California, all of the company’s single-serve sizes of Arrowhead Brand Mountain Spring Water and Nestlé Pure Life bottles produced in the state are made with 50 percent rPET.
Nestlé Waters’ parent company, Nestlé SA, is a signatory of the recently announced New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. An initiative of The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UN Environment, the global commitment is an agreement to ensure that 100 percent of plastic packaging can be reused, recycled or composted by 2025.
Nestlé Waters has been operating in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years and has invested more than $350 million in its two Lehigh Valley facilities, employing more than 600 Pennsylvanians.
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