Austrian mineral water bottler Vöslauer (Bad Vöslau; www.voeslauer.com) plans to further expand its reusable PET range. In the spring of 2022, returnable PET bottles that can be reused up to 12 times will be added to the range of containers, replacing the existing PET “two-way system”.

Managing director Birgit Aichinger said, “By switching to returnable PET, we will save around 400 t of material per year in the future, which corresponds to a carbon equivalent of 420 t.” Of the total of 305 mn bottles filled last year, 21% were reusable, with about half of them made of glass.

“In Austria, returnable PET containers were common until the 1990s, but they disappeared from shelves completely due to a lack of demand,” explains Vöslauer managing director Herbert Schlossnikl. As part of the conversion to reusable, around EUR 7 mn are now being invested in new facilities. At market launch, the PET returnable bottle will have a recycled content of 30%; the aim is to continuously expand this proportion. The labels are also made of 100% recycled material.

The majority of Vöslauer’s bottling, almost 80%, uses disposable PET containers. The bottling company had already launched the first varieties in 2018, in bottles made of 100% recycled plastic. The conversion of the entire range to rPET then took place in 2020, five years earlier than originally announced (see Plasteurope.com of 20.08.2020).

This was made possible because Vöslauer, as co-founder of PET to PET Recycling Österreich (Vienna; www.pet2pet.at) sits at the source, so to speak: in 2020, around 28,200 t of material were recycled in Austria’s only PET recycling plant in Müllendorf (see Plasteurope.com of 18.08.2021).

By 2030, the company aims to save a further 28% of carbon compared to 2019 through reduced material use, increased returnable content and the use of 100% recycled material. According to its own information, Vöslauer has already been carbon-neutral since the beginning of 2020: “Compared to 2005, 50% of the emissions were reduced through our own efforts and the other half was offset.”

With a market share of more than 40%, Vöslauer is number one in Austria’s mineral water market. The export quota in 2020 was around 17%, and the company currently employs 211 people.