All Smarties packaging will now be recyclable paper: Nestle

Nestle in Australia and the rest of the world will now exclusively use recyclable paper packaging for its range of Smarties products.

According to a statement from the company on Tuesday, the move will cut down on 250 million plastic wrappers globally per year. 

Within Australia, the move has meant investment in new machinery at Nestle’s Campbellfield, Victoria site, it said, with this including a new wrapper machine. Some Smarties packaging was already paper-based, but now it would all bear the Australasian Recycling label.

Nestlé’s confectionery general manager Chris O’Donnell said it was part of a company-wide move to cut use of virgin plastic by a third by 2025.

“Developing safe and convenient paper-based solutions for Smarties has required pioneering new materials and testing by Nestlé packaging experts at both our Confectionery R&D Centre in the UK and the Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences in Switzerland,” he added.  

“We also had to invest in upgrading all the factories that make Smarties. The paper packaging requires careful handling, so we needed to adapt our manufacturing lines to allow for the new formats.” 

The news follows the announcement by the company last month of prototype Kit Kat wrappers made of 30 per cent recycled soft plastics, which came out of a collaboration with CurbCycle, iQ Renew, Licella, Viva Energy Australia, LyondellBasell, REDcycle, Taghleef Industries and Amcor.

Image: Nestlé

Subscribe to our free @AuManufacturing newsletter here.