Leading regional juice maker and bottle water company, Masafi, will launch biodegradable plastic wrappers and plans to use the same technology for its bottles and caps.

“We have introduced oxo-biodegradable shrink wraps and handles for our 1.5 litre bottles; a first of its kind initiative in the industry for this region to protect the environment,” Mohammed Usman, the Masafi plant manager, was quoted as saying in a report in The National.

The new oxo-biodegradable technology adds a small amount of metal salts to plastics which speed up the degradation of the plastic from hundreds of years to about 24 months, as the plastic breaks down into water, carbon dioxide and biomass after its first exposure to the sun, he explained.

“To be introduced in our 1.5 litre bottles in the initial stage, the packaging will be extended to our 500ml bottles and flavoured-water bottles at a later stage – all these at no extra cost to our consumers.”

Usman said the eco-friendly move adds about 10 per cent to the company’s cost of production, but that is being offset by reducing the weight of the bottles.

Per capita consumption of bottled water in the UAE is 285 litres a year and the market is worth about Dh1 billion ($272.2 million) a year, with total annual consumption estimated at 1.2 billion litres, he stated.