As part of glob­al ef­forts to make 100 per cent of pack­ag­ing ei­ther re­cy­clable or reusable by the year 2025, Nestlé T&T Lim­it­ed has ceased pro­duc­tion us­ing plas­tic straws, and tran­si­tioned to the use of sus­tain­ably sourced pa­per straws across its en­tire range of ready-to-drink juice and dairy prod­ucts.

In a re­lease, Patri­cio Tor­res, Nestlé Head of Mar­ket for the An­glo Dutch Caribbean Re­gion (ADC) not­ed that this was not an easy job, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the chal­lenges faced in 2020 with­in the con­text of COVID-19.

He in­di­cat­ed that as a team, Nestlé kept its com­mit­ment to de­liv­er the best prod­uct not just for con­sumers, but for the plan­et.

He added: “This is very close to our hearts, and our pur­pose as a com­pa­ny.”

In the state­ment, Elisa Dol­dron, Busi­ness Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer for Dairy, Juices and Ready-to-Drink Bev­er­ages at Nestlé ADC made it clear that this is on­ly the first step, shar­ing that the com­pa­ny’s pa­per straw in­no­va­tion rep­re­sents an 89 per cent re­duc­tion in plas­tic used in tra­di­tion­al plas­tic straws at the Val­sayn fac­to­ry.

She added that the tran­si­tion to a pa­per straw wrap—which en­cas­es the pa­per straw on pack—is al­ready well un­der­way in the de­sign and test­ing phas­es.

Nestlé not­ed that the pa­per straws are de­signed for re­cy­cling with­in the bev­er­age con­tain­er and should be pushed back in­to the pack and placed in bev­er­age con­tain­er re­cy­cling bins.

It added that the pa­per straws are cer­ti­fied by the For­est Stew­ard­ship Coun­cil (FSC) en­sur­ing that the straws come from re­spon­si­bly man­aged forests, and main­tain the U-shaped bend of the pre­vi­ous plas­tic straw.