Procter & Gamble signed a five-year contract to purchase recycled plastic from a supplier the UK. The consumer goods corporation plans to use the recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) for its European Ariel laundry product range.

P&G recently said that using this recycled resin for making Ariel Liquid detergent bottles would help the company reach as much as 50% recycled content in the liquid bottles this year — reducing the amount of virgin petroleum plastic used. Ariel previously committed to making all its packaging recyclable by 2022, and reducing plastic usage in packaging 30% by 2025.

The new contract with UK recycling and energy recovery company Viridor also supports P&G’s global sustainability goals for 2030, which include reaching 100% recyclable or reusable packaging, and reducing the use of virgin petroleum plastic in all packaging by 50%.

To cut out virgin plastic, Procter & Gamble is increasing the use of recycled plastic, moving toward more concentrated product forms wherever that makes sense, and using alternative materials. “We estimate this will avoid the use of over 300,000 tons of virgin plastic,” the company said last year.

In January 2019, P&G became a founding member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a global nonprofit organization with over 40 members from across the plastics and consumer goods value chain including BASF, Chevron Phillips Chemical, Dow, ExxonMobil, Formosa Plastics, Henkel, Shell, Total, and Veolia. The alliance is investing more than $1.5 billion to develop and scale up solutions that help end plastic waste in the environment.

P&G purchases group manager Adam Selby said that the recent contract with Viridor accelerates the reduction of virgin petroleum plastic in their packaging. P&G expects to save the equivalent of 200 million bottles made from virgin plastic over the five years that the contract covers.

Source: Environment + Energy Leader