Nestlé Waters North America has signed an agreement with recycled PET plastic (rPET) supplier CarbonLITE (carbonliterecycling.com), which will expand its U.S. operations by building a third facility in Pennsylvania.

The new contract builds upon Nestlé Waters’ existing relationship with CarbonLITE and allows the beverage company to further expand use of recycled materials in its packaging. The company currently purchases rPET from CarbonLITE’s existing facilities in California and Texas.

CarbonLITE anticipates the facility will be in full production by early 2020, and will have the ability to recycle over 2 billion post-consumer bottles per year. The new 200,000-square-foot processing facility is anticipated to save 60,000 tons of carbon annually by using PCR materials and produce 80 million pounds per year of food-grade rPET pellets.

Nestlé Waters has been increasing the amount of rPET it uses in its packaging since 2011, and in February 2018, the company launched a 700ml Nestlé Pure Life bottle made of 100 percent rPET. In California, all of the company’s single-serve sizes of Arrowhead Brand Mountain Spring Water and Nestlé Pure Life bottles produced in the state are made with 50 percent rPET.