Coke Sets Goal Of Recycling All Bottles Sold In U.S.

September 6, 2007

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Coca-Cola will help build a $45 million plastics recycling plant in South Carolina and has set a goal of having every bottle it sells in the U.S. recycled or reused, Forbes reports.

The company estimates about 10 percent of its plastic bottles are recycled now. It has not set a date for reaching the new goal. The company will spend $60 million this year on its recycling efforts, The Washington Post reports.

Coca-Cola will loan or invest $44 million in the plant project, which is a joint venture with United Resource Recovery Corp.
The 30-acre plant, to be built in Spartanburg, S.C., would produce about 100 million pounds of food-grade recyclable plastic per year – the equivalent of nearly 2 billion 20-ounce Coca-Cola bottles.

Earlier this week, Coca-Cola unveiled a new bottle design that is completely recyclable and uses five percent less PET than its predecessor.

To assist in the recycling effort, Coca-Cola Enterprises, the world’s largest marketer, distributor and producer of Coca-Cola products, has launched Coca-Cola Recycling LLC. Based out of CCE’s Atlanta headquarters, Coca-Cola Recycling will focus on recovering and recycling packaging materials used in North America -? including PET, aluminum, cardboard and plastic film.

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Reader Comments

One of the easiest ways to acheive this is the bottle deposit system. It works effectively in Europe – providing an income for disadvantaged populations, cleaner urban environments and reduced financial burden on local waste management systems.

Coke just needs to look to their past and put the pressure on to create new ‘Bottle Bills’. The first mover and social marketing benefits of this move should make obvious business sense.

BJ | September 9th, 2007

Why are they doing this now? This effort should have been expended 10 or 20 years ago. Recycling, and encouraging/teaching consumers to recycle is not new.

I think it is disgusting that this company is only making a move on this issue now that “green” has reached a higher public consciousness.

Regarding BJ’s comment, I am shocked that bottle deposits are not the norm throughout the US. Everything he says is true. I live in Canada, and am pretty certain that we have this as law in all our provinces, and I know from reading labels, that certain US States have had this policy for years, but I guess I was ignorant to the fact that not all states do it. Shocked.

Sam | September 13th, 2007

Take a look where the greatest numbers of disposable plastic containers/capita are made and its no surprise that South Carolina will be home to the Coke recycle plant. A bottle bill in SC?? Its been intoduced many times in th elast 20 years but too much of SC tax revenue comes from the disposable products industry. Where is the recycle lobby in SC?

frank powell | September 21st, 2007