Coca-Cola further reduces use of virgin plastic

From this summer, all Coca-Cola PET bottles made in Belgium will consist entirely of recycled plastic. The switch will involve an investment of ten million euros.

Almost entire portfolio

Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) is banning virgin plastic from fossil fuels from its PET bottles in Belgium and Luxembourg. Except for three packagings that are produced abroad (Aquarius 1.5l, Tropico 1.5l and Minute Maid 33cl), all of the beverage company’s PET bottles will switch to 100 per cent recycled plastic this summer.

“With this, we are taking a huge step towards circular plastic packaging with fewer carbon emissions on which we are working together with the entire industry,” says An Vermeulen, Country Director Belgium-Luxembourg for CCEP. The switch to 100 per cent rpet will cost the drinks giant around ten million euros, as the recycled material is more expensive than new plastic.

Campaign

CCEP now wants to work on improving the collection of used bottles to make packaging truly circular by 2025. “At the moment, 92 per cent of our bottles are recovered in Belgium. This is certainly not bad, but there is still room for improvement. Especially on the road, it is not always easy to collect bottles, which means that they end up as litter in nature.”

To encourage consumers to recycle the packaging even better and certainly not just throw it away, the company will launch a new marketing campaign this summer – as it did two years ago.