More and more, consumers are looking for companies with a clear purpose—brands that express shared values rather than simply selling a product. People want companies to address the issues they care about. One of those issues—one of the most important, in fact—is the environment. A Nielsen study from last fall showed that 81 percent of respondents around the world feel strongly that companies should help improve the environment.

The good news is that companies are listening. HP, whose printer cartridges were once a proxy for wasteful packaging, has made recycling a priority. Today, over 80 percent of HP ink cartridges and 100 percent of HP LaserJet toner cartridges contain recycled plastics, and the company has helped customers return more than 735 million HP cartridges for recycling.

Many companies are also taking a more innovative approach with packaging materials, considering durability and potential for recycling and reuse. Innovation initiatives such as the NextGen Cup Challenge, have harnessed the collective power of big brands to tackle big issues related to packaging waste.

For example, Poland Spring, America’s leading spring water brand, has announced its commitment to use 100 percent recycled plastic, which is 100 percent recyclable after use, across its still water portfolio by 2022*. The company will start replacing virgin plastic with recycled plastic this month in its one-liter still water bottle, with more transitions to come in the remainder of the year.

Prioritizing recycled content over virgin content helps address the issue of mismanaged plastic waste, and demonstrates that simple acts—like choosing a recycling bin over a trashcan—can have enormous impacts. By signaling large-scale demand for recycled plastic, this announcement from Poland Spring could also help build a more robust recycling economy in the Northeast.

Poland Spring, along with its parent company Nestlé Waters North America, is collaborating with organizations like Closed Loop Fund and The Recycling Partnership to help increase recycling infrastructure and improve recycling education.

It’s all part of a growing movement toward creating a circular economy, which aims to break the cycle of take-make-waste that dominates our culture. By more carefully managing the ways that we recycle and repurpose the materials we use, we can take a big leap forward in reducing our impact on the planet.

Increased use of recycled plastic and improving manufacturing standards needs to be a worldwide effort driven largely by industry leaders. But alone, it is not enough to truly influence systemic change. People who buy and use these products need to be part of the change as well. They can vote with their dollars, choose products wisely, and make sure all recyclable packaging is, in fact, recycled after use. Collaboration and collective effort across all levels will help deliver powerful, positive change to build a more sustainable future for us all.

Find more on Poland Spring’s commitment to addressing plastics pollution here. For further information on how all of us can improve recycling habits, visit https://berecycled.org/

*This commitment includes all bottle sizes below one gallon. Labels and caps are recyclable, but not made with recycled materials.