Packaging makes sure our high quality dairy products get safely to people around the world. But the disposal of that packaging can come with a challenge.
So, we’re taking steps to reduce our impact. We are on a journey to make our packaging increasingly recycle-ready.
We’re making our packaging recycle-ready.
Whilst it is not always possible for us to influence the recycling infrastructure available to our customers, we can control the type of packaging we use. We are focusing on using materials and formats that are recycle-ready without compromising our high quality products or food safety outcomes.
What does recycle-ready mean?
Recycle-ready means that our packaging meets international industry-agreed Design for Recyclability guidelines.¹ This means used packaging can be turned back into raw materials using commercialised technologies, which reduces the demand for new virgin materials to be created. However, the exact level of recyclability will vary depending on the availability of recycling collection and processing infrastructure in any given market. Some recycle-ready packaging cannot be readily recycled yet in some markets as the infrastructure is not yet widespread. In this situation we also use the term Ready for Recycling.
Recyclable
We will only use the term “recyclable” and/or associated icon where we are satisfied that the infrastructure to collect and process our recycle-ready packaging is readily available in the market in which we sell it.²
Our progress
We seek to consistently improve the design of our packaging, lifting from 87% to 90% recycle-ready across our global portfolio between FY2020 and FY2024, and forecasting to reach 95% by the end of calendar year 2025. We have also supported activities in our major markets to increase actual recycling rates.
We worked with one of our packaging suppliers Amcor, to develop a new recycle-ready film to use on our cheeses, based on their award-winning AmPrimaTM technology. We are the first to commercialise this technology in Australasia, and have transitioned to this material for our NZ-manufactured cream cheese blocks and foodservice shredded cheese.
We’ve invested in new equipment in our Saudi Arabia manufacturing plant which is enabling a transition from PVC shrink sleeves to PET shrink sleeves on our jar cheese. PVC is a non-recyclable material which is known to contaminate recycling pathways.
We supported the pilot of the National Plastics Recycling Scheme in Australia, to enable people to recycle soft plastics from home; allowing for larger quantities of soft plastics to be captured and recycled. And to support our industrial customers in Australia, we joined the Big Bag Recovery scheme, which is a producer-pays Government accredited product stewardship scheme.
How you can help
Making a real impact takes everyone.
After you’ve finished enjoying your dairy goodness, make sure to clean and recycle everything you can. When all Fonterra’s dairy lovers do this, we can help reduce our impact together.
Working together to reduce solid waste to landfill.
We are working hard to reduce, year on year, the volume of waste going to landfill.
We are working closely with recycling partners to identify pathways to recycle many of the waste types we have on our sites.
Some of the materials we use require specialised reprocessing to ensure they don't end up in landfill. It can take time for the right technology to be developed but we are continuing to identify new potential solutions as they become available.
Our Approach
We are developing site specific Waste Improvement Plans to identify where we can do better with our waste and to ensure solutions are shared across our sites.
We are working with experts to ensure, that as technology and demand develop, we can divert any hard to recycle materials away from landfill.
All our hard work has seen a 32% reduction of waste to landfill in FY24 from our FY19 baseline.
¹ For example, the Association of Plastic Recyclers design guide and testing protocols.
² We define “readily available” as either (a) at least 80% of users have access to recycling services for this particular type of packaging (aligned with labelling programmes such as Australasian Recycling Label), or (b) data shows that recovery rates of at least 30% are being achieved for this particular type of packaging (aligned with definitions used by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Global Commitment).