The Re-Source brand will be sold exclusively at Whole Foods Market outlets in the United States, where consumers will be encouraged to recycle the bottles at in-store collection points. Nestle says it will use the collected plastic to produce items such as fleece, reusable shopping bags, carpet and new plastic beverage bottles.

The Greenwich, Conn.-based company also pledges to donate 5 cents from every bottle sold to Keep America Beautiful.

Michael Besancon, senior global vice president of purchasing, distribution and marketing at Whole Foods Market, says the company supported Nestle’s initiative as “businesses should assume their responsibility as tenants of planet earth.”

He added: “Re-Source’s use of recycled plastic in its bottles and innovative in-store recycling program will increase recycling awareness and give our customers another opportunity to be part of the solution.”

The Re-Source program will start in California and Arizona and roll out to the rest of the U.S. later this year.

Nestle is the latest global beverage company to sign up to recycled PET. Coca-Cola Co. has pledged to use 25 percent recycled PET in its U.S. bottles by 2015. It started up a $45 million PET recycling plant at Spartanburg, S.C., in February.

In Europe, Paris-based Groupe Danone’s Evian brand last month signed a recycled PET supply contract with France Plastique Recyclage in Limay, France. Evian currently uses an average of 25 percent recycled PET in its Evian and Volvic bottles but hopes to raise this to 50 percent by the end of the year.