Nestlé Purina PetCare sustainability drive cuts 3,500 tons of packaging

Nestlé Purina PetCare has launched its sustainability report showing it has cut the use of 3,542 tons of packaging since 2015.

The pet care giant said since 2017, 52% of the avoided packaging material was plastic. In 2018 alone, the company avoided 787 tonnes of packaging.

Currently, 67% of Nestlé Purina’s packaging is widely recyclable, 27% is currently hard to recycle, and 6% has limited recyclability.

Last year the company changed elements of the (multi)pack Purina Gourmet 50g pouches and 85g cans.

For can multipacks Purina has changed the cardboard specification allowing us to save 140 tonnes of packaging materials. A spokesperson told Packaging News: “For pouch multipacks the company we installed a new packaging line and changed the outer packaging structure allowing us to reduce the amount of packaging material used from 30.5g to 26.1g. This contributed to saving of 99 tonnes of packaging material overall.”

Additionally, reduction in use of plastics is demonstrated by ‘downgauging’ the Polyethylene layer in packs such as Purina One Bifensis and Purina Friskies Junior.

This initiative helped the firm to reduce 174.6 tonnes of duplex laminated and 353.7 tonnes of triplex laminate.

“This will make the packaging easier to treat in recycling facilities,” read the report.

Some of Purina’s pet food is already sold in fully recyclable packaging, including cardboard boxes with 100% recycled content and aluminium cans which contain recycled content.

The pet food giant said like other manufacturers, wet food pouches are Purina’s most difficult challenge from a sustainability perspective, and that the company is working to find an alternative material for pet food pouches.

However, it is not easy because pouch packaging needs to be robust enough to withstand Purina’s cooking processes and to keep the product fresh on shelf.

The company is also participating in a new European project called CEFLEX, which will work towards the development of an infrastructure to collect, sort and recycle all types of used flexible plastics across Europe by 2025.

Bernard Meunier, chief executive at Nestlé Purina PetCare EMENA, said: “Our Purina in Society Report 2018 shares the significant contribution that colleagues and partners have made to our commitments. We do want to increase and speed up our impact. Therefore, we invite you to continue working with us to create a society that truly is better with pets.”