Citing factors outside the company’s control, brand giant PepsiCo has softened its global post-consumer recycled content target and given itself more time to achieve the goal.
The company on May 22 announced that its goal of hitting 50% recycled content in global plastic packaging by 2030 has been changed to a goal of hitting 40% or more recycled content in certain markets by 2035. The identified markets cover more than 80% of the company’s overall plastic use.
PepsiCo set the 50% by 2030 goal in 2021, which itself was an extension of a previous goal to hit 25% global PCR use by 2025.
Although PepsiCo uses significant quantities of PCR in some markets — recent California data indicated the company averaged 36% PCR in its bottles sold in that state in 2024 — its global PCR use remains relatively low. In its most recent sustainability reporting, PepsiCo hit 10% PCR globally in 2023, up from 7% in 2022, 6% in 2021, 5% in 2020, 4% in 2019, and 3% in 2018 and 2017, when numbers were first available.
In announcing the changes, PepsiCo said its modified goals “remain ambitious and will continue to require investment, innovation, and cross-sector collaboration to drive systemic change and support the business.” But it described substantial challenges that include a patchwork of recycled content-related regulation globally.
“For example, India only passed laws allowing RPET for beverage packaging in 2023, with food packaging added this year, while China does not allow RPET inclusion in food-grade packaging,” the company wrote.
Beyond its PCR goal change, PepsiCo ended a goal that aimed to deliver 20% of the company’s beverage servings through reusable packaging models by 2030, including refillable containers and products that enable at-home beverage preparation. The company will no longer work toward that specific goal but will continue “various efforts on reuse as part of its goal around designing packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable,” according to the announcement.
The company didn’t respond to an interview request.
The pivot comes after PepsiCo has regularly hinted at PCR-related difficulties in its annual sustainability reporting. As far back as 2017, the company noted challenges sourcing PCR, with then-CEO Indra Nooyi writing, “We are one of the largest users of food-grade recycled PET in the U.S. In fact, if more recycled PET were available, we’d buy it.”
By 2022, PepsiCo reported “external factors such as the limited availability and high cost of recycled content” hampering its progress, as well as the need for regulatory changes in certain countries to enable recycled resin use.
And in its 2023 report, PepsiCo described how “building sufficient collection, sortation and waste management infrastructure, as well as well-designed policies that support a circular economy, are significant challenges we and others face.”
The company identified a number of initiatives it is engaging with to help address those challenges, including supporting the Every Bottle Back program, through which brands fund local recycling infrastructure, and actively engaging with Circular Action Alliance, the producer responsibility organization that is managing packaging EPR programs poised to roll out in several U.S. states.
The PCR goal change also comes after the company narrowly missed a 2025 goal to make 100% of its packaging recoverable or reusable, instead hitting 98%.
A version of this story appeared in Plastics Recycling Update on May 29.
