With our commitment to a world where the planet is healthy, we’re always innovating to prevent our packaging from becoming waste. And with the help of our customers in Thailand, we’re making a difference.
Packaging for product discounts
Mars Thailand is now in year two of its SWAP Recycling Program, allowing pet parents to swap their empty bags of dry or wet pet food of any brand for a discount on the purchase of any of our pet food brands like PEDIGREE®, WHISKAS®, IAMS™, CESAR® or SHEBA®.
We’ve seen an impressive level of engagement from Thai consumers, with a rapid increase in return rates during recent months. To date, more than 150,000 bags of used plastic packaging have been collected and converted into useful products. We even used cat-shaped paving blocks made of waste plastic to pave outdoor areas of our new pet food manufacturing plant in Chonburi.
Rewarding sustainability habits
On World Environment Day 2022, we kicked the initiative up a notch and joined forces with Second Life, a social enterprise supporting companies to develop recycling solutions for packaging that would otherwise be discarded as waste. Together, we launched the SWAP Recycling app, which allows users to ship any flexible and complex plastic waste for recycling in exchange for reward points and discounts on Mars Petcare products and other brands. The app is available on the App Store and Google Play.
Joel Cockcroft, Mars Global Petcare Packaging Sustainability Program Lead, said:
“This app will enable thousands more Thai citizens to return their used flexible plastic packaging for recycling; packaging that would otherwise have ended up as waste due to a lack of local recycling infrastructure. We’ll be closely monitoring the data and insights from the app to improve the program and engage even more participants.”
Tristan Lecomte, Director for Second Life, said:
“We’re pleased that our collaboration with Mars Petcare has reached its second phase. Mars Petcare has been working side by side with us to sponsor the development of a digital application for smartphones which encourages consumers to send their flexible and complex plastic waste to recycling centers and earn rewards. We share a vision for a future in which no packaging becomes waste.”
The pilot program is underway in Thailand with a plan to roll it out to other countries in Asia — another exciting step forward in our efforts to help create a world where the planet is healthy, people and pets are thriving and society is inclusive.
