Heinz revamps Tomato Ketchup bottles with fully recyclable caps

Heinz has rolled out new tomato ketchup packs featuring a ‘100% recyclable’ cap on its squeezy bottles.

This should ensure the whole bottle and the cap can now be recycled in regular kerbside collection.

The move means a potential 300 million plastic caps annually can be recycled, instead of ending up into landfill.

Heinz said it spent years in intensive research, development and testing to create the ‘first-of-its-kind’ cap, made from a single type of material to make it fully compatible with kerbside recycling.

The old style Heinz cap used a flexible valve made from silicone which was typically a challenge to recycle – and was common with many plastic packaging products.

Heinz said another benefit of the new cap was is that they make it easier to squeeze out sauce when the bottle is nearly empty.

Jojo de Noronha, president of Kraft Heinz Northern Europe, said: “We know our consumers care about their impact on the environment and so do we, which is why we’re delighted to see our innovative, more sustainable caps on Heinz Tomato Ketchup bottles across the UK. Although a small change, this makes it easy for the millions of Heinz lovers across the country to recycle their whole squeezy bottle at once – a small action with big potential for impact.”

Adam Herriott, senior sector specialist at WRAP added: “We fully support this innovation from Heinz and welcome this packaging development. All products and packaging have an impact on the environment. Whilst prevention or elimination of packaging in the first instance would be the ideal scenario (and at the top of the hierarchy), packaging plays an important, practical and convenient role. Therefore, the next step is to look at ensuring as much of it is recyclable, reusable or compostable as possible. Through the UK Plastics Pact, our members have made some groundbreaking changes and introduced new innovations to ensure we are reusing, recycling, refilling and composting as much as possible. There is a lot of work still to be done to ensure we reach our targets and have circularity when it comes to this material.”