Chief executive Karen Lynch told Food Manufacture that Belu and packaging supplier Plastipak had been trying to move to a fully post-consumer recycled content bottle for the past four years.
“Unless we, as an industry, start believing in 100% rPET, we won’t get the investment we need in improving the quality of waste recycling,” she said. “There will come a point when consumers start to expect this.”
Belu offers glass bottles to customers, but not metal or beverage cartons.
Lynch claimed that all the company’s research showed there were no environmental benefits in moving to aluminium.
“Even with 70% recycled material, that still leaves 30% dependent on bauxite mining,” she said. “With so much anti-plastics feeling around, offering aluminium would be profiteering and would imply that the [metal] alternative was somehow better.”
