PepsiCo aims to make all its food packaging recyclable, compostable, biodegradable or reusable as soon as 2025. It's research is being done at a greenhouse in Plano at Frito-Lay R&D headquarters.

April 7, 2023

Can four compost bins in North Texas save the world from the ever-growing flow of plastic waste into the environment?

Researchers with PepsiCo say yes.

They say that the testing compost bins at the Plano-based research and development headquarters for Frito-Lay and Quaker are already transforming how the world packages food and what happens when that packaging has served its purpose.

The completion of the 1,080-square-foot greenhouse learning center built to house the compost test bins is expected to hasten the testing of how rapidly different samples of biodegradable food packaging break down. The various scenarios recreated in the facility include a commercial composting facility, a home composting bin and several types of soil.

The bins at the Pepsico research facility in Plano test various bio-based polymer formulas in commercial and home composting conditions. Photo by Marshall Hinsley.The bins at the Pepsico research facility in Plano test various bio-based polymer formulas in commercial and home composting conditions. Photo by Marshall Hinsley.

The task is finding out which packaging formulas degrade the fastest in compost piles, landfills or natural terrain if discarded packages wind up as litter. The researchers are fine-tuning a bio-based polymer that in ambient temperatures turns into nothing but carbon dioxide, water, organic biomass and harmless aluminum oxide in about six months, leaving no toxic chemical residues or microplastic particles behind.

By having a testing facility onsite, researchers can eliminate the days or weeks that it takes for outside third-party labs to start tests, send back results and field requests and questions that arise as researchers review results. As a result, the pace of innovation is sped up two to three times, compared to the company's former testing practices.

By having a testing facility onsite, researchers can eliminate the days or weeks added when working with outside third-party labs.

The process already takes at least six months to test real world degradation rates. So the time saved by having the onsite facility should help researchers more quickly find the right balance between keeping food packaging material stable on grocery store shelves versus breaking down when exposed to outdoor elements.

“Our objective is to be without waste and without a trace,” says Denise Lefebvre, senior vice president of research and development for PepsiCo Foods North America. “What we're striving for is home compostability and even marine degradability.”

The soil bin tests degradation in the environment in various soil types. Photo by Marshall HinsleyThe soil bin tests degradation in the environment in various soil types at the Frito-Lay R&D headquarters in Plano. Photo by Marshall Hinsley

PLASTIC POLLUTION PUSHBACK

Pepsico is a global company with more than $86 billion in annual revenue. The New York-based corporation is the second largest food and beverage business in the world behind Nestlé and owns 23 brands, including Frito-Lay and Quaker. 

The company’s attention to its plastic pollution is a response to potential government regulation around the world and a growing movement of socially-conscious investment among so-called environmental, social and governance investors who are divesting from fossil fuel companies and prioritizing companies that work to protect human rights and the planet.

PepsiCo has put in place an ESG policy called pep+ that includes the goal of making all food packaging throughout its brands recyclable, compostable, biodegradable or reusable by 2025, or soon thereafter.

The process already takes at least six months to test real world degradation rates. Photo by Marshall Hinsley.

Reaching that goal would hand PepsiCo the claim of being an industry leader in sustainability in contrast to companies that rely on fossil fuel-based single-use plastics for their profit model. This would give the company an edge, as governments and environmental groups continue to criticize corporations for not doing enough to curb the massive amount of plastic products and packaging that wind up in the world's landfills, neighborhoods, roadways, beaches, parks, waterways and oceans every day.

Greenpeace USA plastics project lead Kate Melges ranks PepsiCo second only to Coca-Cola as the world’s worst offenders regarding plastic pollution. Melges says PepsiCo ‘uses more than five billion pounds of plastic in its packaging each year” and should “do more to end its reliance on big oil and shift away from single-use plastics.”

The Climate Capitalist, an online ESG investment information resource, also singles out PepsiCo as one of the largest contributors to plastic pollution.

“Each year PepsiCo sells about 60 billion plastic bottles, making it the second most prevalent waste product found in annual sea water and beach clean ups in 45 countries. Studies indicate Pepsi is responsible for 10 percent of all global plastic pollution. Pepsi says it hopes to reduce waste but it isn’t promising much once its plastic bottles leave the store. It sells upwards of 30 percent of its plastic into countries like the Philippines and India, where a high percentage of the trash runs down rivers into the ocean.”

INDUSTRY INFLUENCER

Lefebvre says PepsiCo is building a consortium of food manufacturers to share its researchers’ findings with competitors and thereby transform the way the entire food industry packages products.

“I think one of the big things here, we need this to be a showcase to progress the industry along with us,” Lefebvre says.

Lefebvre says PepsiCo is building a consortium of food manufacturers to share its researchers’ findings with competitors and thereby transform the way the entire food industry packages products.

Recent research isn't the company's first entrance into biodegradable packaging. In 2010, PepsiCo made Sun Chips brand snack foods available in the world’s first 100 percent commercially compostable metalized chip bag, but customers complained that the packages crinkled too loudly, so the packaging was abandoned. More recently, the company introduced a next-generation, and quieter, commercially compostable snack bag to the market through its Off The Eaten Path snack brand.

In 2010, PepsiCo made Sun Chips brand snack foods available in the world’s first 100 percent commercially compostable metalized chip bag, but customers complained that the packages crinkled too loudly, so the packaging was abandoned.

HEATING UP PROGRESS, LOWERING EMISSIONS

A bio-based polymer test bag that has been mostly degraded. Photo by Marshall Hinsley.A bio-based polymer test bag that has been mostly degraded. Photo by Marshall Hinsley.

PepsiCo’s current biodegradable packaging is only quickly degraded in commercial composting facilities where hotter and more closely managed conditions break down the plastics. Home compostability, with ambient outdoor temperatures and a wider range of moisture variability, remains a goal still outside of reach.

Nevertheless, says Sri Narayan-Sarathy, PepsiCo’s global foods packaging director, commercially compostable bags should break down in the open air much sooner than conventional plastic bags. The bio bags may still taking years to disappear, but not decades, centuries or millenniums as with fossil fuel-based plastics.

PepsiCo’s current biodegradable packaging is only quickly degraded in commercial composting facilities where hotter and more closely managed conditions break down the plastics. Home compostability, with ambient outdoor temperatures and a wider range of moisture variability, remains a goal still outside of reach.

“The microbes will recognize it as food, eat it and convert it to CO2 and water,” she says.

Another advantage of bio-based packaging, says Yolanda Malone, PepsiCo global foods packaging vice president, is that plant-based polymers reduce package manufacturing greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 60 percent compared to conventional snack bags and bottles.

She says the company has made progress regarding its environmental impact but these advancements will help them continue to improve.

“Today, we know we have a lower carbon footprint,” Malone says. “We know we need to reduce our use of virgin fossil fuels. And these types of materials help us deliver that.”

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