Nestlé Waters CEO calls for EPR
Thu, 05/12/2011 - 10:59 | 
dylan
Nestlé Waters CEO calls for EPRBy Editorial Staff Speaking at the 22nd Annual Indiana Recycling Coalition Conference this week in Indianapolis, Kim Jeffery, President and CEO of Nestlé Waters North America was "bullish" about the prospects for extended producer responsibility (EPR) measures on a state-by-state basis. When talking about EPR state legislation for curbside materials, he admitted "the first EPR law will be in a non-bottle-bill-deposit state," further noting that "we are desperately searching for that state." Jeffery, a veteran of Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA) for over three decades, sees EPR as the best way to increase recycling rates. "Recycling is stagnant in America," he said. "We have an antiquated, fragmented recycling system." NWNA, which makes its own bottles, consumes 400 million pounds per year of PET, and is currently building a 40 million pound-per-year PET recycling plant. The company has 27 plants bottling 10 different brands of beverages from 50 company-owned springs, employing 8,000 in total. Even with all that vertical integration, the company still can only reach the halfway recycled content mark at one of its plants saying, "We can't afford it companywide. PET recycling will never be viable until PCR is cheaper than virgin," Jeffery said. |
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Fed up with beverage industry rhetoric
* Recycling is anything but stagnant in bottle bill states.
* The beverage industry has neutered the progress of recycling in the US. through deployment of lobbying efforts at a (cost of millions) to promote its opposition of bottle bills (EPR's) here in the US.
* They have willfully created a shortage of high quality PET (post consumer) feedstock in an effort to restrain commercial investment in PET reprocessing here in the US.
* Now the public is clamoring for recycled content, and private industry has invested millions in new PET reprocessing projects that are at risk of failure due to beverage industry efforts in creating feedstock shortages.
* The beverage industry, who has created the supply inbalance, is now crying about inflationary spirals that push PCR above virgin.
* They have established a business model that produces billions in revenues and utilizes PET packaging as the centerpiece.
* It’s time for them to take responsibility for what they are doing to the environment beyond the smokescreen of the “plant bottle”.
Ten states have EPR already, it's called a bottle bill
The first EPR law will be in a non-deposit state? But container deposit laws are EPR. Really confused on this article. And curbside recycling isn't EPR, it's paid for by government and tax payers (or by customers to private haulers.) I think this is the nonsense version of "EPR" that he's referring to: http://www.container-recycling.org/assets/pdfs/2011-CRIResponseToNLOnEPR.pdf
I think Nestle needs reminded of the facts.
The facts:
*Bottle bill (a form of EPR) states recycle around 70-95% of their containers.
*Non bottle bill states recycle around 30% or less.
*The ten deposit states recycle more containers than the other 40 states combined.
*Two thirds of beverage containers are littered or landfilled in the US.
Recycling and EPR programs should work in conjunction with bottle bills.
I think Nestle needs to start reading www.bottlebill.org and start getting serious about recycling.