IGPN - International Green Purchasing Network

January 31, 2017

P&G launches world's first recyclable shampoo bottle made with beach plastic

By Vaidehi Shah
Tuesday 31 January 2017

Consumer goods giant Procter and Gamble (P&G) has announced that it will produce a limited-edition series of recyclable Head and Shoulders shampoo bottles that use plastic waste from beach litter.

The initiative, which according to P&G is the world’s first municipally recyclable shampoo bottle made using up to 25 per cent recycled beach plastic—previous containers made with beach plastic were not recyclable after use—was announced on January 19 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It is the latest in a series of high-profile moves by global manufacturers to use plastic in a more sustainable way, such as Unilever’s recent promise that all its plastic packaging will be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025; and sportswear giant Adidas’s 2016 line of sneakers made from ocean waste.

P&G has partnered with United States-based recycling company TerraCycle and French waste and water treatment services firm Suez to develop the bottles, which it says will be available to consumers in Carrefour supermarkets this summer. The company did not share now many bottles it will produce by publication time.

TerraCycle, which is already working with non-profit groups and organisations that carry out beach cleanups, will pay for the beach trash to be delivered to a TerraCycle facility. There, the waste will be sorted to remove non-plastic materials. The remaining plastic is sent on to Suez facilities for processing.

P&G also said that by the end of 2018, more than 90 per cent of the hair product bottles it sells in Europe—more than half a billion bottles per year—will contain as much as 25 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic. This will require a supply of 2,600 tonnes of recycled plastic every year, or as much as eight fully loaded Boeing 747 aircraft.

Read more at Eco-Business.

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