PepsiCo Beverages North America (PBNA) will eliminate the plastic rings that hold together multipacks of bottled and canned beverages across its U.S. product line, replacing them with a paper-based solution that will roll out later this year. PBNA’s transition to paperboard packaging for these products in the U.S. follows the rollout in Canada that is just beginning to hit the marketplace.
PepsiCo will use paperboard wraps and clips for the multipacks of brands including Pepsi, Pepsi Zero, Starry, Gatorade and others. In Canada, the new wraps and clips will include 7Up products. This new application is said to be easy to implement on the shelf for customers; it is made from recycled materials and is recyclable itself.
The company says in a release that the packaging change helps drive progress toward PepsiCo’s goal of a 50% reduction of virgin plastic from non-renewable sources per serving across its global beverage and convenient foods portfolio by 2030. It anticipates this change will eliminate millions of pounds of plastic from packaging in North America over the coming years.
Over the last 50 years or more, plastic rings on cans and bottles have been the bane of environmental stewards and a poster child for consumer-driven pollution and waste. In recent times, beverage companies have worked to eliminate these rings, or at least make them less treacherous to animals and the environment once they are discarded by consumers.
