Procter & Gamble to use more recycled plastic
By Jim Johnson, Plastics News
Posted 24 July 2015
prw.com
Household product giant Procter & Gamble expects to use more recycled plastic in more fabric care product packaging – in some cases going from zero to 50% – in a move that will affect hundreds of millions of containers.
And the company is liaising with plastic recyclers around the world to push use even higher.
The decision will affect an expected 230 million HDPE and PET bottles annually starting next year, the US-based company said. Brands, primarily sold in Europe, such as Ariel, Dash, Lenor and Unstopables, all are covered by the increase.
The global consumer packaged goods giant already uses some recycled content in packaging for some of the affected brands, but others will see recycled plastics for the very first time.
The push toward using more recycled plastics in the company’s fabric care unit is part of a larger overall environmental effort by the company that also includes the announced end of phosphates in detergents.
“We’re making huge steps in improving the sustainability of our products,” the firm said. “We were already using PCR [post-consumer resin] in a number of our bottles and this increase we are going a step further.
“This increase alone will take Lenor bottles from 0 to 50% PCR, Unstopables will go from 35% PCR to 50%, and Ariel, Dash, Simply, Ace, Bold and others will go from 0 to 25%.”
Gianni Siserani, group president of global fabric and home care for P&G, said the company was looking for more recycled plastics suppliers around the world to provide more material.
“This will allow us to increase the amount of recycled plastic in more brands and geographies,” he said.
Accounting for the increase in recycled content, the company said it expected to use a total of 7.6 million pounds (3.4 million kg) of recycled plastic in the 230 million bottles.
Brands covered under the latest announcement include the Unstopables line of products that are sold in both the UK and North America, where P&G said it has been using post-consumer content for more than a quarter of a century.
“In terms of the number of bottles currently containing PRC, we use PCR in many categories including laundry detergents, fabric softeners, hard surface cleaners, and others in North America and the bottles contain at least 25% PCR,” a P&G spokesman said.
“This has been the case for over 25 years. We are very excited to announce the increase in PCR use in North America as well as the expansion of PCR in Europe.”
P&G said it planned to roll out the increased recycled content in different markets as soon as possible rather than waiting for a unified introduction in every market at once, allowing for the benefits of using recycled plastics to be realised as soon as possible.
The 230 million containers impacted by the additional recycled content would, if laid end-to-end, stretch from the North Pole to the South Pole, it added.
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