Britvic’s Ballygowan water brand moves to 100% recycled plastic bottles

Britvic said its Irish water brand Ballygowan Mineral Water will be moving to 100% recycled plastic bottles.

The move follows a €2m (£1.72m) investment by Britvic at Ballygowan’s Newcastle West source in Limerick, Ireland.

Britvic said the investment is a significant part of its sustainability strategy, which will see all British-made bottles including Robinsons, Fruit Shoot and Tango also switch to 100% rPET by the end of 2022. Fruit Shoot Hydro has already switched to rPET bottles in September 2020.

The change sets Ballygowan on its way to becoming Ireland’s most sustainable water brand and will see the removal of 51 million virgin PET bottles from the economy, the equivalent of 1,288 tonnes of plastic.

Later this year, Ballygowan will remove a further 245 tonnes of plastic through packaging redesign. When recycled correctly, these new 100% rPET bottles can be reused continuously, becoming a key contributor to the circular economy.

“By investing in a fully recycled bottling system, we are taking a major step to reduce our impact on the planet. This is the latest innovation in a journey which has already seen a reduction of over 90% in our manufacturing emissions for Ballygowan,” commented Kevin Donnelly, managing director at Britvic Ireland.

In 2019, Britvic provided a £5m investment support package to Esterform Packaging Ltd, allowing them to build an rPET manufacturing facility in North Yorkshire. The company said this long-term supply of rPET will be crucial to delivering its 2022 goal.