In 2020, 72% of our packaging was recyclable and 75% of our packaging was designed for recycling*. In April 2018, Nestlé made a global commitment that by 2025, 100% of its packaging will be reusable or recyclable – this includes all Purina products and is something we are working hard to achieve.
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.
Similarly to other manufacturers, wet food pouches are our most difficult packaging to recycle. The pouches are made up of different types of plastics and aluminium which are layered together to form the complete packaging. It’s difficult to separate the individual layers for recycling and there are very few recycling facilities that can currently do this. At the same time, each country differs in their ability to collect sort, re-use, recycle and recover packaging.
We are working on reducing both the complexity of materials and the number of different layers in our packaging. This will make the packaging easier to recycle. In relation to this, we are working hard to find an alternative material for pet food pouches. It is not easy because pouch packaging needs to be robust enough to withstand our cooking processes and to keep the product fresh on shelf. Nevertheless, since one of our priorities is to make Purina wet food pouches fully recyclable, our teams are testing new designs & technologies, which would ensure circularity of the pouch.
Not only do we investigate and innovate to make packaging that can be recovered at the end of its useful life but we also work hard to ensure that we use the minimum adequate amount of packaging by weight and volume. In 2016, as part of our Purina in Society Commitments, we set a target to avoid the use of 3,000 tonnes of packaging material by 2019 compared to 2015 levels. In 2018, we avoided 787 tonnes of packaging. In total, since 2015 we have avoided 3,542 tonnes of packaging, over-delivering our target by 18%.
Discover Purina's commitments towards improving the environmental performance of Purina packaging.
*The packaging is designed to be recyclable, but the infrastructure is not in place or only partially in place
