Our PET Recycling Loop
REIMAGINING OUR CLOSED CYCLES
We are aware of our responsibility to the environment and we comprehensively tackle the issue of recycling with our expertise.
WELL PACKAGED
Plastic has proven itself as a packaging material over many years. Whether for beverages, ice cream or other kinds of food – the unique properties of plastic offer a wide range of benefits to consumers and the environment. Plastics are lightweight, strong, flexible and generally recyclable. As a packaging material, they guarantee food safety and the shelf life of the product.
Plastic packaging is used to efficiently transport and store food and to prevent food waste. It protects valuable resources, but must also be produced and recycled in a responsible and resource-conserving way. Our understanding of plastics is reflected in Reset Plastic, the common Schwarz Group’s Companies’ plastics strategy.
RESET PLASTIC –
THE COMMON PLASTICS STRATEGY
As part of their jointly developed plastics strategy, the companies of Schwarz Group have committed themselves to reduce plastic consumption by 20 percent by 2025, making 100 percent of its own brand packaging as recyclable as possible, and using an average of 25 percent recycled material in its own brand packaging. We are helping to achieve these targets.
REset Plastic, the jointly developed plastics strategy of the companies of Schwarz Group, was launched in 2018. We are working together with Lidl, Kaufland, PreZero, Schwarz Dienstleistungen and Schwarz Digits to pursue our vision of “Less plastic – closed loops”.
RESET PLASTIC A HOLISTIC APPROACH CONSISTING OF FIVE FIELDS OF ACTION:
OUR PET RECYCLING LOOP – A SOPHISTICATED SYSTEM
MEG, the Schwarz Produktion beverage and recycling network, has operated a unique recycling loop for PET deposit scheme bottles since 2010. Every single mineral water and soft drink bottle returned to a bottle deposit machine at Lidl is taken to our recycling plants and fed back into our recycling loop. Bottles returned to Kaufland are also reprocessed in this loop.
PET-Recycling
We have been collecting, sorting and recycling beverage bottles for many years now.
0%
recycled material is used in our PET bottles.
WHY DO WE USE PET FOR OUR BEVERAGE PACKAGING?
We are working intensely on increasing the proportion of recycled materials in our bottles. Ever since June 2021, all the beverage bottles we have delivered to Lidl and Kaufland in Germany have been made with 100 percent recycled PET material* (R-PET). They no longer contain any new plastic. But that is not enough for us: we also want to further optimise our PET bottles for the international market. To save as much new PET material as possible and further improve our ecological balance sheet, we are also reducing the weight of our bottles. Thus, since 2007, we have used up to 35 percent less new material.
The group’s recycling loop for PET single-use bottles from the bottle deposit scheme saves a total of more than 80,000 tonnes of new PET and more than 150,000 tonnes of CO2 per year by using recycled PET and reducing the weight of our bottles. The total savings have actually been over 700,000 tonnes of PET since 2008, and a total of more than 1.3 million tonnes of CO2.
Of course, these successes do not signal the end of our commitment – we are continuously improving our PET bottles.
* The statement refers to the bottle body, not the cap and label.
OLD BOTTLES BECOME NEW ONES.
For us, the single-use bottles of today are the recyclable materials of tomorrow.
> 0
tonnes of PET – this is how much we have saved since 2008.
With our recyclable bottle, we have created an efficient recycling loop in Germany that lets us offer consumers a cost-effective ecological alternative.
FURTHER SAVINGS ON PLASTICS AT SCHWARZ PRODUKTION
Our goal is to ensure maximum recyclability for our plastic packaging. In doing so, we want to ensure we can reuse our recyclable materials and create a proper circular economy. Furthermore, we are continuously reducing the weight of our plastic packaging and using more and more recycled material. In doing so, we are making a particularly significant contribution to the REdesign and REcycle fields of action in the Schwarz Group REset Plastics strategy.
In addition to our PET beverage bottles, we are also making our other packaging lighter and more efficient: one achievement that is especially worthy of mention in this regard relates to the Solent nut bag for the brand Alesto. We gradually reduced its weight by up to 20 percent in recent years. We will continue to save on further quantities of plastic in the future through adapted designs and innovations.
ENSURING RECYCLABILITY
We are well on track in using less plastic and in ensuring that our trading partners’ own brand packaging is as recyclable as possible.
> 0 Billion
bottles are recycled by our facilities every year.
We are also working intensively on the use of other recycled plastics apart from recycled PET in our packaging. Already today, we cover around 75 percent of the total amount of plastic needed for our food packaging with recycled material**.
**The statement refers to retail packaging.
