October 30, 2022  

5 Best Practices We Adopted to Bring Pakistan’s First Beverage Bottle Made from Recycled Plastic to Life

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Innovation is in the DNA of PepsiCo, and we have always leveraged our best-in-class work practices to launch new products and initiatives and improve the ones we already have.

When it came to launching Pakistan’s very first beverage bottle made from recycled plastic, we knew this would be an industry benchmark. Our two-year long journey in overseeing one of Pakistan’s largest plastics collection and recycling programs taught us valuable lessons while we applied robust mechanisms to expand on the circular economy of plastics.

We launched Pakistan’s first beverage bottle made of recycled plastic in partnership with Novatex Ltd, Saaf Suthra Sheher, Green Earth Recycling, WWF-Pakistan and our bottlers Pakistan Beverages Ltd (PBL). The 500 ml food grade bottle contains the same strong new Pepsi consumers love. It is available in Karachi as a start.

Here are five things we did to achieve this industry standard!

1. A Tangible and Ambitious Long-Term Goal

PepsiCo Pakistan envisions a world in which packaging never has to become waste. This aligns with our global PepsiCo Positive (Pep+) sustainability agenda through which we are working on ways to do good for people and the planet. We launched one of Pakistan’s largest plastic collection programs and have collected 32,000+ tons of plastic in 2022 in the service of this goal. The launch of Pakistan’s first beverage bottle made of recycled plastic in partnership with key partners is a milestone in our overall sustainable packaging goal.

A tangible and ambitious long-term goal can help set and achieve extraordinary milestones!

The journey of sustainability of a bottle.

2. Industry and Cross-Sectoral Linkages are Key to Success

This is as true for a college presentation as it is for launching the country’s first food grade recycled plastic bottle! The right partners and linkages can support and help bring a project to life.

We partnered with Novatex Ltd, Green Earth Recycling, WWF – Pakistan and Saaf Suthra Sheher to drive our plastics collection program, as well as our work on creating bottles made from recycled plastic, and within two years of initiation we have achieved that target. 

nisa Malik, Furqan Ahmed, Eugene Willemsen, and Sidra Iqbal stand together holding Pepsi bottles.

Rizwan Diwan (Novatex), Hammad Naqi Khan (WWF-Pakistan), Mehrunisa Malik (Saaf Suthra Sheher), Furqan Ahmed (PepsiCo Pakistan), Eugene Willemsen (PEPSICO AMESA) with Sidra Iqbal, host at the launch event of Pakistan’s first beverage bottle made of recycled plastic.

Through these partnerships, strategic innovations like reverse vending machines, consumer education programs, and collaborations with recyclers for ensuring the beneficial use of collected plastics bottles have been setup. We are also on a glidepath to achieve 100 % plastics collection by 2025.

3. Leveraging the Power of Our Brands

Our brands are our pride, and we share the very best of them with our consumers. This is why, whether it is our snacks or our beverages, the consumers can’t get enough of them. There is the brand history, and then there is the consumers’ history with our brands, and that bond is inseparable because our brands create smiles with every sip and every bite. 

Pepsi #WhyNotRecycle

Pepsi Pakistan’s now iconic marketing slogan “Why Not Meri Jaan” was refashioned
to a galvanizing call to action: “Why Not Recycle Meri Jaan”.

To add to it, our Pep+ sustainability agenda is now intrinsically and inextricably linked with how we work and our products. Hence, we reiterated our commitment to doing good for people and the planet by launching Pakistan’s first beverage bottle made from recycled plastic to be used for brand Pepsi in Pakistan’s biggest city Karachi. We plan to expand this initiative to other cities in the country.

Leveraging the ubiquity of brand Pepsi has provided consumer a positive choice when they enjoy their favorite beverage. The recyclable and recycled bottle for Pepsi will ultimately close the loop on the circularity of plastics by eliminating the need for creating new – or virgin – plastic.

4. Taking on Challenges and Rallying Support for Sustainability

A pioneering effort in any field can bring about unprecedented challenges, but they can be taken on with conviction if the goal is worth it. With perseverance and robust commitment to company ideals of faster, stronger, better, we were compelled to keep working towards our shared goals of recycled packaging with our partners. We rallied support from our colleagues across teams, and externally with our stakeholders, bottlers and ultimately from the Ministry of Climate Change. The Ministry of Climate Change supported our drive for the circular economy of plastics because it aligns with their “Recycle Plastics Initiative”.

Reaching out to stakeholders and partners and rallying support for a great cause.

5. Innovating for Results

With our Pep+ sustainability agenda, we are set to empower our teams and stakeholders to innovate and find solutions to help the cause.

Our beverage packaging is already recyclable, and now, with recycled packaging for brand Pepsi, consumers in Karachi will be able to significantly reduce the need for creation of virgin – or new – plastic, as the new recycled and recyclable packaging will go back into the loop of re-creation!

Pepsi #WhyNotRecycle: Made from recycled plastic, progressing towards a greener planet

Pepsi’s new recycled packaging is innovative
and the next step in circular economy of plastics.

We plan on continuing our support to our consumers when it comes to learning more about our work in the circular economy of plastics and how they can be a part of lasting change because at PepsiCo, we believe in a collective approach to finding solutions!

6. Thought Leadership and Stakeholder Engagement

At the launch of Pakistan’s first beverage bottle made from recycled plastic, we brought together a diverse group of stakeholders and thought leaders from within PepsiCo – AMESA sector leadership, PepsiCo Pakistan leadership and colleagues from the PepsiCo Foundation – and from academia, recycling and sustainability partners and industry leaders, environmental tech and specialists and more. The reason was to share our achievement while also leveraging their expertise for the possibility of further collaborations.

Eugene Willemsen talking at a panel

Discussing the future of sustainable packaging and empowering consumers
to make positive choices in responsible consumption.

A frank and open discussion about the circular economy of plastics, the future of sustainable packaging, helping empower consumers to make positive consumption choices and cross-sectoral sustainable reforms was conducted between Eugene Willemsen, CEO of PepsiCo Africa, Middle East and South Asia; Furqan Ahmed Syed, CEO of PepsiCo Pakistan and Afghanistan Business Unit; Mehrunisa Malik, Co-Founder and COO of Saaf Suthra Sheher; Rizwan Diwan, Executive Director of Novatex; and Hammad Naqi Khan, Director General and CEO of WWF-Pakistan. The emphasis was also put on collaboration to tackle some of the biggest challenges in sustainability, and hopefully new linkages were emerge!