Announcing the GOOD Guide to Recycling

A Message from Our Friends at Arrowhead®:

Image via Flickr user Dave Goodman (cc)

Dear GOOD readers,

If you’re like most Americans, you’re on the move for most of your waking hours. It is not surprising that our food and beverage habits reflect that reality: Roughly 70 percent of what we drink comes from a bottle or a can. While this makes our lives more convenient, we need to consider that much of the waste that ends up in oceans and landfills each year started out as litter.

Tim Brown
Chairman, CEO & President, Nestlé Waters North America

Yet I believe it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of getting frustrated by the statistics, let’s consider them and work towards a better future.

That’s what our partnership with GOOD over the next few weeks is all about: examining the surprisingly complex world of plastic waste so we can tackle it together. We’ll hear from innovators, nonprofits, federal agencies, and corporations who are striving each day to make a positive impact.

In California, there continues to be good news in the area of recycling. The Golden State has increased its recycling of PET (the plastic used in most packaged beverages) to 70 percent. This is well above the national average of about 31 percent. We want to highlight what California’s doing right.

Our California-based Arrowhead brand is able to make use of this high recycling rate, and recently announced plans to expand its use of rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) by nearly 40 percent next year.

Recycling is a crucial first step in supporting a bottle-to-bottle model. I’d like to see the day when we can get to 100 percent rPET material in our packaging. We’ll need to improve technology and innovation, but maybe most importantly, we’ll need to shift our mindset to view packaging not as waste but as a resource.

Many of the items we treat as trash have so much potential value. Together we can increase recycling rates by finding smart, sustainable ways to extend the life of some of the most common objects in our lives.

Sincerely,

Tim Brown
Chairman, CEO & President, Nestlé Waters North America