Nestlé Waters North America will aim to achieve 25% recycled plastic packaging across its US domestic portfolio by 2021.

The company plans to continue expanding its use of recycled materials in the coming years, further setting an ambition to reach 50% recycled plastic by 2025.

The Nestlé unit – which sells products such as Perrier and San Pellegrino – is also expanding its relationship with its supplier Plastrec and working with other suppliers to support its ability to nearly quadruple its use of food-grade recycled plastic, or rPET, in less than three years.

Last month, the business signed a “significant agreement” to source recycled rPET from Los Angeles-based supplier CarbonLITE.

Nestlé Waters North America CEO Fernando Mercé said: “We want to take the ‘single’ out of ‘single-use’ bottles. Our bottles were never meant to be thrown in the garbage – we carefully design them to be collected, recycled, and repurposed.

“PET plastic is a valuable resource that, if recycled properly, can be used to create new bottles again and again. We’re proving that it can be done by making bottles out of other bottles, not ten years from now, but today.”

In its 2016 report, The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation found that most plastic packaging is used only once, and that 95% of the value of plastic packaging material, worth between $80 and $120 billion annually, is lost to the economy.

Earlier this year, as a result of Nestlé Waters’ relationship with Plastrec, the company unveiled a new 100% rPET Nestlé Pure Life bottle.

Mark Murray, executive director of the environmental group Californians Against Waste, said: “The planet has a problem with plastic pollution. If plastic is going to survive as a packaging material it must demonstrate closed-loop capability.

“Nestlé Waters has embraced this responsibility by accelerating their use of recycled content over the next three years and their commitment to reach 50% by 2025. Nestlé Waters is setting the example that the rest of the beverage industry must embrace.”