US-based environmentally conscious bottled-water company EARTH2O will use recycled material sourced from Orpet to create a closed-loop manufacturing system to infinitely reuse Oregon’s recycled goods.
EARTH2O is considered to be the first company in the US to use recycled PET, the BPA-free plastic resin produced from recycled beverage containers.
The partnership between EARTH2O and Orpet was initiated by Business Oregon, the state's economic development agency with the aim of converting recycled beverage containers into reusable material made into single-serve BPA-free water bottles in EARTH2O's manufacturing facility in Oregon.
Orpet collects used beverage containers from recycling centres across Oregon and sorts, cleans and converts them into a flake material which is then transported to Peninsula Plastics Recycling, where it is ground into resin that is converted into pellets and sent to EARTH2O for producing BPA-free, single-serve water bottles.
EARTH2O president and CEO Steve Emery said: "EARTH2O's commitment to utilizing only recycled materials from Oregon means we are diverting significantly more waste from our state landfills. This is an important milestone in our long-standing effort to improve the communities where we live, work and play."
In 2011, EARTH2O was the first company to eliminate the need for using cardboard for packaging single-serve water bottles which helped in eliminating close to 350,000 pounds of cardboard waste annually.
This year, the company is planning to give a push to its sustainability by manufacturing bottle caps.
Oregon senator Betsy Johnson said: "This milestone further demonstrates how Oregon is leading sustainable business through public- private partnerships. The more we can come together to innovate how we do business while giving back to the community, the more prosperous we will become, today and into the future."
