Advanced recycling technology is helping PepsiCo transform hard-to-recycle plastic waste into high-quality beverage packaging, reducing dependence on virgin plastic and pushing packaging circularity forward.

 

What if an old carpet, discarded clothing, or a plastic container destined for a landfill could become your next sports drink bottle?

 

That's the vision behind PepsiCo's latest sustainability initiative. Through a multi-year agreement with Eastman, the company is using advanced recycling technology to convert hard-to-recycle polyester plastics into food-grade recycled material for beverage packaging.

 

The first results are already reaching consumers. In 2026, PepsiCo began rolling out Gatorade bottles across the United States made with recycled plastic enabled by Eastman's technology, demonstrating how waste materials can be transformed into premium beverage packaging.

 

At the heart of the effort is a challenge that has long plagued the recycling industry. While many clear plastic bottles can move through traditional recycling systems, materials such as carpet fibers, clothing, colored plastics, opaque containers, films, jars and other difficult-to-process plastics often end up in landfills because conventional recycling methods cannot effectively handle them.

 

PepsiCo believes advanced recycling can help close that gap.

 

“It’s exciting because with this technology, plastics that otherwise couldn’t be recycled are being recycled, which allows for more recycled content to be incorporated into packaging that have historically required virgin quality materials to create,” said Burgess Davis, PepsiCo’s North America chief sustainability officer.

 

Traditional mechanical recycling remains the backbone of most municipal recycling programs. The process involves sorting, cleaning, melting and reshaping used plastic into new products.

 

However, not all plastics are suitable for that approach. Materials such as colored and opaque bottles are significantly more difficult to recycle, and repeatedly recycled plastics can lose the appearance and quality required for consumer packaging.

 

Eastman's advanced recycling technology takes a different approach.

 

Instead of simply melting plastics down, the process breaks difficult-to-recycle materials back to their molecular building blocks, purifies them and rebuilds them into virgin-quality recycled plastic suitable for food-grade packaging.

 

“Eastman’s technology takes colored and opaque plastic bottles and other everyday plastic materials that mechanical recyclers do not process, breaks them down to their original molecular level and purifies them, so they can be rebuilt into high-quality virgin-like bottles made with recycled plastic that can be easily customized to fit the packaging design needs of a given product,” said Lindsay Bridenbaker, PepsiCo’s vice president of global beverages packaging R&D.

 

PepsiCo says the technology is being used specifically to create new packaging from plastic waste that would otherwise have few recycling options.

 

The company acknowledges that advanced recycling alone will not solve the global plastics challenge. Industry-wide progress will still require better packaging design, stronger collection systems, improved recycling infrastructure, supportive public policy and continued innovation.

 

Still, company leaders see advanced recycling as an important addition to the circular economy toolkit.

 

By expanding the types of plastics that can be recycled into new packaging, PepsiCo aims to reduce demand for virgin plastic while keeping more waste out of landfills.

 

“Advanced recycling is not intended to replace mechanical recycling or be a silver bullet solution to solve the global challenge of packaging waste,” said David Allen, PepsiCo’s global vice president of sustainable packaging. 

 

“Instead, it’s meant to complement mechanical recycling and help recycle the materials that fall outside existing systems and expand what’s possible for packaging circularity.”

 

As advanced recycling technologies scale, everyday waste—from old carpets to discarded plastic containers—could increasingly find a second life on store shelves, helping move the packaging industry closer to a more circular future.