Pepsi quietly announces plan to use 10% recycled plastic by 2005

Pepsi quietly announces plan to use 10% recycled plastic by 2005

(Feb. 22) — Pepsi-Cola Co. now plans to use 10 percent recycled content in its PET bottles by 2005, a significant step that comes after its archrival, Coca-Cola Co., announced similar plans last year.
The plan, announced quietly to bottlers and a few shareholders in letters dated Feb. 19 and Feb. 20, says the company “will be working towards a new goal of 10 percent recycled content” in PET containers in Pepsi´s system in the United States by 2005.

A Pepsi spokesman said he was not sure what technologies the company will use, and he declined to say how the company would get to 10 percent.

Environmental groups and shareholders that have been pressuring the company to use 25 percent recycled content welcomed the move, but said they wanted more details. The GrassRoots Recycling Network said Pepsi committed to 25 percent recycled content in 1990 and then “proceeded to blow that off.”

A Pepsi letter to a group of investment firms that tout themselves as being socially responsible said the company would begin using recycled plastic in its bottles this year.

“We know that it is technically and economically feasible to produce a food-grade container made with 10 percent recycled content, so we believe achieving that rate is a reasonable action,” stated a Feb. 19 letter Pepsi sent to Ken Scott, portfolio manager and social research analyst for Walden Asset Management in Boston