PepsiCo scraps use of 100 percent recyclable plastic bottles

PepsiCo is reported to have rolled back its use of 100 percent recyclable-PET bottles- despite committing to transition all of its ready to drink products to recycled plastic by the end of the year- owing to the lack of availability of recycled plastics.

According to recent reports, a PepsiCo spokesperson confirmed that the FMCG giant had been making “good progress” towards the target, which was originally launched in 2020, and had moved some of its products into 100 percent rPET by the end of last year.

However, it is now understood that despite the FMCG giant facing sufficient supplier capacity to convert clean and processed plastic waste into new bottles at the start of 2022, demand has “quickly begun to outstrip supply in the ensuing months”.

The spokesperson confirmed that the company was “facing some supply issues which has meant that we have had to lower the percentage of rPET used across these products”, adding the Pepsi, Lipton and 7up owner was “working hard to establish additional supply”.

Smoothie brand Naked, however, is still being sold in 100 percent rPET bottles, having switched in 2020.

The move follows the introduction of the plastics tax in April this year, which applies a £200 per tonne levy on all plastic packaging manufactured or imported into the UK that contains less than 30 percent recycled plastic.

While plastic tax was touted as a game-changing move in the war on plastic, critics reportedly believe that it has caused the price of recycled materials to surge and availability to drop instead.