One billion recyclable milk cartons and yoghurt pots by 2030

Denmark’s largest dairy producer Arla will reduce its carbon footprint by 7.330 tons in the European markets within 2030.

Arla is setting the sustainability agenda in the dairy industry these days with a new move towards recyclable packaging for their most popular products: milk and yoghurt.

“We want to help people live a more sustainable life as well as feel good about what’s in their fridge. Fresh milk and yogurts are enjoyed on a daily basis in most households in our main markets and are also key to our retail customers. That’s why these items topped our list of packaging to improve from a sustainability perspective and our pan-European presence enables us to leverage our scale and impact several markets simultaneously,” says Arla’s head of Europe, Peter Giørtz-Carlsen.

600 million Arla milk cartons and 560 million yoghurt pots will be made of 100% renewable materials by 2030. The new packaging will be available for consumers in Arla’s six main European markets: Sweden, Denmark, Finland the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.

600 million Arla milk cartons and 560 million yoghurt pots will be made of 100% renewable materials by 2030

Great knowledge within sustainable initiatives

Even though this is probably one of Arla’s biggest moves towards sustainable packaging, the field of using renewable materials is not new for the Danish dairy company.

“We have a rich back catalogue of moves that have made our packaging better for the environment over the years. But no doubt, this year’s conversion of more than one billion packaging items is one of our biggest ever. Coupled with some other smaller initiatives, it means we will hit our CO2 savings target for packaging for 2019. But we have to deliver every year, so we are already developing plans for next year’s reduction,” says Peter Giørtz-Carlsen.

Past initiatives have included weight reductions, switching to bio-based plastics, incorporating recycled materials and replacing greenhouse gas intensive materials. Since 2005, Arla has reduced the CO2 impact of its packaging by 25%, equal to 123,000 tonnes of CO2 being diverted from the atmosphere.

Even though these changes in packaging will make the materials recyclable, Arla’s initiatives on packaging are still dependent on an infrastructure in society making it possible to sort and recycle the sustainable materials correctly.

“We are dependent on the recycling systems in markets being fully developed and when they are, we’re preparing our packaging to be ready,” says Peter Giørtz-Carlsen.

Source: Arla