recycling activists

going round in circles

A game of swingball. Dad jokes. Planet Earth. We like it when things go round in circles, and we want our bottles to do the same. Ever since we started, we’ve been on a quest to get healthy drinks into people’s hands (and bodies) while doing our bit to keep the planet healthy at the same time. At the moment, we think plastic bottles are the best way of doing that. They're easy to recycle and thanks to them being lightweight transporting them has a lower carbon footprint than glass. To prove that plastic doesn't have to be rubbish, we're on a mission to encourage everyone to recycle and we campaign for well designed deposit return schemes in Europe to help collect even more bottles to recycle.

our most sustainable bottle yet

You won’t be able to tell from looking at them, but our smoothie bottles are the most sustainable ones we’ve created yet. They’re made from 50% recycled plastic, 15% plant plastic (which comes from a by-product of sugar cane) and are recyclable. We’re also on a mission to create our dream bottle that will be made only from renewable or recycled material and that will enable us to stop using virgin plastics created from fossil fuels.

the story so far

2003

We start thinking about the impact our bottles have on the planet and launch our first 25% recycled plastic (rPET) bottle. Big moment.

2006

We hit 50% recycled plastic in all of our bottles, except one which we trial in PLA – a compostable plastic.

2007

We test drive the world's first food grade 100% rPET bottle. It's a great achievement and a great idea in theory, but the quality wasn't quite up to scratch.

2011

We have to pull back to 35% rPET because the quality of the bottles isn't good enough. We get some advice from our friends at WRAP.

2013

We work hard to improve our bottles and get some of them back up to 50% recycled plastic. Happy days.

2018

We make our most sustainable bottle yet from 50% recycled and 15% plant plastic. It’s the greatest bottle we’ve ever seen.

2020

We get all of our juice and smoothie bottles up to at least 50% rPET.

2025-2030

We’re busy working on our greenest bottle yet. It'll be 50% plant plastic, 50% recycled plastic, and 100% recyclable. Take a peak at it here.

recycle and redesign

In our eyes, the world is facing two big challenges: the climate crisis and plastic pollution. Luckily, there’s a way to tackle them both and it’s called ‘the circular economy’ . The circular economy is all about treating plastic with the respect it deserves. That means using less of it, not littering it, then recycling it over and over and over and ov– you get the idea. Here's how we're planning to reduce, recover, recycle and redesign.

reduce

cutting out 2,500 tonnes of plastic

We're making our bottles lighter and, through this work, we're on track to save 2,500 tonnes of plastic by 2023. We also use recycled and plant-based plastic which is lower carbon than virgin material.

recover

working together to make plastic better

We can only fix the problem of plastic pollution if we team up with lots of different people and organisations. That's why we're founding members of the UK Plastics Pact, one of the founding signatories of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, and doing everything we can to support deposit return schemes (DRS) all across Europe. We're now part of schemes in Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands and Germany, and campaigning to be part of others across Europe too.

recycle

an easy guide to recycling our packaging

redesign

the bottles of tomorrow

We're always looking for inventive ways to improve our packaging. Over the years, we've come up with some pretty great ideas – although most of them were a bit too pioneering for their own good.

Right now, plastic is one of the lowest carbon ways we can get our drinks to people. That means it's a good material for tackling the climate crisis and reaching our goal of being carbon neutral by 2025. But just because it's one of the best options at the moment, that doesn't mean it always will be. We have a team of people here at innocent who are working tirelessly to find new and exciting ways to make our packaging more sustainable. Until they find the perfect solution (no pressure or anything), we'll keep pushing to make all our bottles from 100% renewable or recycled material*

As we speak, we're working on an even more sustainable bottle that's made entirely from recycled plastic and plant plastic. It’s recyclable, low carbon, has absolutely no virgin oil-based plastic in it, and no one's ever made one like it before. Because it mixes plant plastic and recycled plastic, it can be recycled more times than a 100% recycled plastic bottle can. So if people keep popping it in the right bin, we'll keep turning it back into bottles. If you want to know more about this plastic wizardry, click here.

*that means we won't use any virgin oil-based plastic

want the ins and outs?

Plastic and recycling is a knotty old subject. Find out what questions we've been asked and how we've answered them.

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