FrieslandCampina Focuses on Recycled PET

From February 2021, FrieslandCampina will produce PET bottles for a range of brands and markets from 100 percent recycled PET. To improve recyclability, the company has also developed a “zipper” for the label that makes it easier to separate from the bottle.

Bottles made from rPET: Starting in February, the Dutch company FrieslandCampina plans to vigorously increase the proportion of recycled material in PET bottles for brands in the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Hungary. “Our ambition is to become fully circular. That is why we are increasing the recycled content of our PET bottles from 20 percent to 100 percent”, announces Patrick van Baal, Global Director Packaging Development at FrieslandCampina. To increase recyclability, FrieslandCampina’s R&D department has also developed a new “zipper”: This allows the label to be easily separated from the bottle.

Around 1,900 tonnes less new plastic

One of the goals of FrieslandCampina’s sustainability program “Nourishing a better planet” is to make the entire packaging portfolio completely circular and carbon neutral and to reduce the amount of packaging materials to a minimum. As early as five years ago, FrieslandCampina made the decision to switch all its drinking bottles to PET. By producing new PET bottles from old PET bottles, FrieslandCampina avoids the production of almost 1.9 million kilos of new plastic, as the company informs.