Nestlé's two new water bottle designs revealed

Nestlé has developed two new packaging innovations for its Vittel natural mineral water bottles. The novel water bottles are designed to function just like traditional plastic bottles but with less plastic.

Firstly, the Vittel GO system consists of a reusable hard protective case designed to hold 50 cl (500 mL) refills of Vittel natural mineral water that are made with 40% less plastic than a traditional bottle. Because the bottles are made with as little recycled plastic as possible, they are very flexible and light, which means they must be used with the reusable protective case to make it easy to drink the water.

The second packaging innovation is a 100% recyclable 1 L Vittel Hybrid bottle that is made from two types of materials. The first material is a thin plastic bottle made entirely from recycled content. It uses two times less plastic than a classic 1L bottle. The plastic layer is surrounded by a fibre-based material made from 100% recycled cardboard and old newspapers. Proprietary technologies enable the plastic and fibre-based layers to be locked together to create a functional, sturdy water bottle that can be easily used without any damage. Nestlé is currently developing a tearing system which allows consumers to easily separate the paper and plastic components for recycling when the hybrid bottle is empty.

The packaging innovations were developed by experts at Nestlé’s research and development centre for waters in Vittel, France, with funding from Nestlé’s internal R&D ‘Shark-Tank’ initiative. To develop the hybrid bottle, the experts worked in collaboration with Ecologic Powered by Jabil, a Californian start-up that specialises in eco-design of packaging.

Both the Vittel GO and Vittel Hybrid water bottles will be available for consumer testing in France in July.