Nestle Waters North America is the largest stand-alone bottled ater marketer in the U.S., and owns the popular Arrowhead and Poland Springs brands. Within the last year, the company has moved from non-involvement in the container recycling issue to more active proponent.

The company received an “F” in As You Sow’s container recycling scorecard and report issued in 2006. Subsequently, the company contacted As You Sow, said our report had performed a public service, and that the company rightly deserved a failing grade. Company officials assured us policy reform was imminent. We subsequently met with Nestle officials who sought our input on policy development on container recycling.

In November 2007, Kim Jeffery, the company CEO publicly indicated his intent to promote legislation that would significantly boost container recovery rates. Mr. Jeffery said the beverage industry needs a more comprehensive, 21st century solution to container waste and endorsed California’s container redemption system with some caveats. “The question is how ambitious are you and can we get people to think about more comprehensive notions for recycling than deposit laws we’ve got on the books today,” he said. This likely puts Nestle Waters at odds with decades of opposition by Coke, Pepsi and the American Beverage Association to “bottle bill” style state laws. We applaud this forward thinking by Mr. Jeffery and expect major announcements from the company in 2008 that should move it towards leadership on recycled content and container recovery.