Nestlé Waters North America Signs Agreement with Recycled PET Supplier CarbonLITE as They Build New Facility in Lehigh Valley

ALLENTOWN, Pa., Nov. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Nestlé Waters North America announced today that it has signed a significant agreement with recycled PET plastic (rPET) supplier CarbonLITE, and that CarbonLITE will expand its U.S. operations by building a third facility in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania.

The new contract builds upon Nestlé Waters’ existing relationship with CarbonLITE, one of the largest producers of food-grade, post-consumer rPET, and allow the beverage company to further expand use of recycled materials in its packaging. The company currently purchases rPET from CarbonLITE’s existing facilities in California and Texas.

“We are pleased that CarbonLITE will be locating a facility in a region important to our manufacturing footprint,” says Bill Trackim, Vice President, Head of Supply Chain and Procurement at Nestlé Waters North America. “Being able to purchase rPET in the area helps us better support the regional economy while promoting environmental sustainability through the use of renewable and recyclable materials in our packaging.”

CarbonLITE anticipates the facility will be in full production by early 2020, and will have the ability to recycle over 2 billion post-consumer bottles a year. The new 200,000-square-foot processing facility is anticipated to save 60,000 tons of carbon annually by using post-consumer materials and produce 80 million pounds per year of food-grade rPET pellets.

“Nestlé Waters continues to be a leader in their sustainability efforts,” says Leon Farahnik, Chairman of CarbonLITE Industries, LLC. “We are proud to have grown with them for the past seven years and proud to expand our relationship in our state of the art facility in Pennsylvania.”

Nestlé Waters, which has two bottling facilities in the Lehigh Valley, uses recycled plastic in a number of its brands including Nestlé Pure Life® and Deer Park® which are bottled locally. The company has been increasing the amount of rPET it uses in its packaging since 2011, and in February 2018, Nestlé Waters launched a 700ml Nestlé Pure Life® bottle made of 100 percent rPET. In California, all of the company’s single-serve sizes of Arrowhead® Brand Mountain Spring Water and Nestlé® Pure Life® bottles produced in the state are made with 50 percent rPET.

Nestlé Waters’ parent company, Nestlé SA, is a signatory of the recently announced New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. An initiative of The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UN Environment, the “Global Commitment” is an agreement to ensure that 100 percent of plastic packaging can be reused, recycled or composted by 2025.

About Nestlé Waters North America
Nestlé Waters has been operating in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years and has invested more than $350 million in its two Lehigh Valley facilities. More than 600 Pennsylvanians work in clean, safe, family-wage manufacturing jobs at Nestlé Waters. Those jobs are directly tied to sustainable water resources at the company’s seven Pennsylvania spring sites.

Nestlé Waters North America offers an unrivaled portfolio of bottled waters for healthy hydration, including Deer Park® Brand 100% Natural Spring Water, Nestlé® Pure Life®, Perrier® and S. Pellegrino®. The company also owns and operates ReadyRefreshSM by Nestlé®, a customizable water and beverage delivery service. Just Click and QuenchSM

Based in Stamford, Connecticut with some 8,500 associates, we are committed to reducing our environmental footprint across our operations. As a natural resource company, we sustainably manage 47 spring sources and conserve nearly 21,000 acres of natural watershed area. We are also committed to creating shared value and being a good neighbor in the 140 communities where we operate in the U.S. For more information, visit us at www.nestle-watersna.com/en and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook: @NestleWatersNA.

SOURCE Nestlé Waters North America