Nestle to spend on recycled plastic plan

Nestle SA plans to spend 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.1 billion) in a plan to push the plastics industry to address the dearth of recycled packaging that’s safe to use for food.Nestle will earmark more than 1.5 billion francs to pay a premium for such plastic to encourage production. The company is also taking steps to reduce the use of plastics through efficiencies. Food companies and beverage companies have came under high pressure from environmental groups and society to reduce the use of plastics. Nestle has pledged to make all of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. Unilever also aims to dividw the use of plastics by the same year and is testing refill stations for products like laundry and shampoo.  

Patrik Schwendimann, an analyst at Zuercher Kantonalbank, said that the environmental issues will remain a topic in the next few years, and companies will have to back up words with real investments.He also said that the whole industry will face higher costs but the positive returns will be the good image of the company by public. Last year Nestle opened 

a research site near Lausanne last year to develop packaging that’s less harmful to the environment, like fully biodegradable paper-based water bottles and refillable containers. The swiss companies like rivals PepsiCo Inc. and Danone also experiments with water dispensers in an attempt to shift to selling beverages without bottles.