Poland Spring to sell water in bottles made from recycled plastic

Nestlé Waters North America announced Monday that Poland Spring water will be sold in recycled bottles by 2022, according to CNN.

The company is making the transition as part of broader efforts to use recycled bottles across a quarter of its portfolio by 2021 and 50 percent by 2050, according to the network.

{mosads}”We spent a lot of time designing these bottles to ensure that they move efficiently and effectively through the recycling value web,” David Tulauskas, Nestlé Waters North America’s chief sustainability officer, told CNN Business. “We want the bottle back.”

The company is one of several corporations committing to increased use of recycled materials, but wide variations in recycling infrastructure from city to city in the U.S. complicate the transition, according to CNN.

In cities with more involved processes for recycling, there are more logistical hurdles for consumers to correctly recycle in the first place and provide companies with the necessary materials.

Several companies, including Nestlé, have put money into the Closed Loop Fund, which invests in recycling technology, according to CNN.

“We do need more suppliers producing food-grade, high-quality” recycled PET, the type of plastic the company uses to make most of its bottles, Tulauskas told the network. If demand is not high enough, recyclers will simply turn recycled plastic into lower-quality plastic.

“They need confidence that we’re going to buy from them for the long term to make sure that it’s worthwhile for them to make the investment,” he said.