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The agri-food industry, one of the world's leading polluters - accounting for 68% of plastic packaging production - intends to change its practices, with special attention paid to the treatment of used bottles. Ania, the National Association of French Food Industries, promises to try to have 100% of its plastic packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025.
Ania is also committed to incorporating 30% recycled plastic into its bottles. These are already recycled, except that plastic is expensive to recycle for few outlets. It usually finishes in synthetic garments, and once they are machine washed, the recycled plastic goes into the wastewater and ends up as micro-plastic in our oceans. It is therefore a question of offering a new outlet to recycled plastic by reintegrating it into the manufacture of bottles of soda, water, or even fruit juice.
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Limit pollution from plastic bottles
Some companies are already working on sustainable solutions to limit the pollution generated by used plastic bottles. Coca-Cola, ranked first polluter in the world by an NGO collective, works on a bottle made from plastic waste directly recovered in the oceans. Some of these recycled plastics could be incorporated into all its bottles by 2020.
Another example: Crystalline. The cork is now hooked to the bottles of the brand of spring water. This allows consumers to remember to throw it with the empty bottle in the yellow bin. Otherwise, it is not recycled, and potentially ends up in nature where birds can confuse it with food.
Finally, at Candia, the thin layer of aluminum inside the milk carton, which was not recyclable, no longer exists. This effort required three years of work at the brand.
Things usually move under pressure from consumers, who are increasingly concerned about the impact of their lifestyle on the environment. But we should go much faster, hit harder, because according to several scientific sources, if nothing is done by 2050, our seas and oceans will contain more plastic than fish.