Closing the Loop on Plastic Bottles
Coca-Cola starts innovative partnership to recover and recycle packaging in the U.S.
Coca-Cola is applying closed-loop principles to plastic soda bottles.
Packaging Innovation
HIGHLIGHTS
- In 2008, Coca-Cola Recycling (CCR) recovered more than 200 million pounds of packaging material.
- According to Coca-Cola, opening the Spartanburg plant created 100 new local jobs.
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About 75% of the plastic soda and water bottles sold in the U.S. end up in landfills—a terrible waste. The beverage industry has responded, for the most part, with "light-weighting," or redesigning bottles that require less material, and by designing packaging that can be readily recycled in the current recycling infrastructure.
The Coca-Cola Company has gone further. The world's largest beverage company set an ambitious goal of recovering 100% of the plastic bottles that it puts into the U.S. marketplace.
Joint venture invests in recycling infrastructure
To put muscle behind this goal, the company formed a joint venture with its biggest bottling company, Coca-Cola Enterprises, and a leading recycling company, the United Resource Recovery Corporation, to build the world's largest bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The joint venture invested $60 million in the facility, which opened last year.
When fully operational, the Spartanburg plant will have the capacity to produce 100 million pounds of recycled PET plastic chips—enough to produce 2 billion 20-ounce bottles.
That's a substantial commitment, but more significant is the thinking behind it: Coca-Cola is saying that it will take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of its products, from production and shipping to recovery. The company aims to close the loop, so that all of its packaging is made into something else.
Separate business focuses on bottle collection
But before the loop can be closed, the current low rates of used bottle collection must rise. That's where Coca-Cola Recycling (CCR) comes in. This for-profit recycling business, launched last year, is dedicated to recovering and recycling packaging materials used by Coca-Cola. CCR has set up 30 centralized recycling centers at major Coca-Cola production facilities. CCR also creates collection programs at colleges and universities, office buildings and retail centers, major sporting events and other large-scale events to drive recycling of bottles and cans.
As it works toward its 100% recovery goal, Coca-Cola has set interim goals:
- By 2010, recover the equivalent of 30% of the bottles and cans that it makes and use an average of 10% post-consumer recycled content in its PET bottles.
- By 2015, recover 50% of its output and achieve 25% post-consumer recycled content in its PET bottles.
Posted: 06-Apr-2009; Updated: 20-Apr-2009
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