As part of its many efforts to help preserve the environment and shape a waste-free future, Nestlé committed to achieve plastic neutrality by making 100% of its packaging material reusable or recyclable by 2025. With this commitment, Nestlé Egypt is employing a unique and socially inclusive model for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to boost local recycling rates.
EPR is an environmental policy in which producers are responsible for the entire life cycle of their products put on the market. By bearing the costs of managing the collection, recovery, recycling, and disposal of their products, Nestlé is reducing the waste that goes to landfills or waterways.
Nestlé Egypt co-designed the socially inclusive EPR model, called DORNA, to boost the recovery and recycling of PET plastic waste in partnership with Cairo’s informal waste recycling community, who collect 50% of Cairo’s municipal waste and recycle 80% of what they collect, and with fishermen who collect plastic discarded in the Nile. The model is a reverse credit system that gives producers the ability to compensate informal waste recyclers and fishermen for every ton of recovered and recycled PET plastic once they have surpassed a minimum monthly threshold. The recovered and recycling waste is then channeled to verified recycling facilities around the city.
The quantities recovered and recycled, from waste collectors to official recycling factories, are tracked on a digital platform and verified by an on-ground team of field verifiers. Once the quantities are verified, the digital platform determines the financial incentive for each person and disburses it into their e-wallets at the end of every month.
In addition to the environmental impact of recovering and recycling post-consumer packaging, DORNA delivers social impact in the form of financial inclusion, digital literacy, and improved livelihoods, especially for women, who account for 20% of informal waste workers. Since this EPR model was launched in December 2019 and as of April 2021, over 12,000 tons of PET plastic have been recovered and recycled and over EGP 8.9 million has been paid out to over 1300 informal waste recyclers who are part of this system.
Read more about DORNA and its impact here*.