 The primary purpose of our beverage packaging is to deliver our products safely and conveniently to customers and consumers. By working with suppliers and customers to reduce the amount of material used in our packaging, we are working to ensure that this packaging is sustainable.
We aim to minimize the raw materials used in our packaging, maximize the use of renewable, reusable and recyclable resources and promote recycling both in our facilities and in the marketplace. Our long-term goal is to recycle the equivalent of 100% of our beverage packaging.
Reducing Packaging
Reducing the amount of raw material in our beverage packages is key to making our packaging more sustainable. Between 2008 and 2010 Coca-Cola Bottling Company aims to avoid the use of 4,200 metric tons of packaging, almost 3% of its projected usage.
Starting in 2007 a number of initiatives enabled us to make good progress, avoiding the use of 959 metric tons of packaging, including:
- PET Bottle Weight Reduction – An important achievement has been to reduce the weight of our Dasani PET bottles by 30%.* In 2007 this initiative saved 493 metric tons of PET.
- Plastic Twist-Off Closures – The new shorter closure on our PET bottles is 24% lighter** than its predecessor. We’re proud to be the first in our industry to launch this closure on sparkling beverages. With this small yet effective change, we estimate an annual savings of 235 metric tons of resin from 2008 onward (see Case Study right).
- Fiberboard Cans – In 2008 Coca-Cola Ltd.'s Minute Maid business unit will be launching a lighter fiberboard for its containers. Going forward this will save approximately 124 metric tons of fiberboard annually.
In late 2007 Coca-Cola Ltd. began using a proprietary packaging database to identify opportunities for future packaging material reductions and to benchmark performance against the global Coca-Cola system.
Increasing Recycled Content
The bulk of our packaging is made of aluminum, PET plastic and/or glass. These materials are not only recyclable, but are among the most recycled consumer packaging materials in Canada. Most of our other product packaging, such as fiberboard cans and juice cartons/boxes, is also recyclable; however, consumer access to recycling is dependent upon the recycling services available locally.
 Including more recycled content in our beverage containers is another way we can make our packaging more sustainable. Aluminum cans for example, include more than half recycled content, while glass contains up to 45%.
To date we have not been able to achieve the same results in our PET packaging, but we are committed to making improvements. PET is widely recycled but is in high demand in industries such as carpeting and textiles, and there is not yet a sufficient supply of high-quality food-grade material. In 2007 Coca-Cola North America invested $40 million to create the world’s largest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility. This reclaimed material will be used to help increase the average recycled content of our PET packaging to 10% by 2010, providing that this is commercially viable.
Promoting Recycling
We also promote recycling both in our own facilities and in the marketplace. In 2007 Coca-Cola Enterprises formed Coca-Cola Recycling LLC, a company dedicated to recovering and recycling packaging materials used by the Coca-Cola business in North America – including PET, aluminum, cardboard and plastic film (see Case Study page 12).
We support recycling programs in every province across Canada and have one consistent goal: to encourage the most effective and efficient diversion of recyclable materials from landfill.
Recycling our Equipment
Coca-Cola Bottling Company is also working to recycle the equipment used to sell its beverages. For example, we have found buyers in North America for our used vending and cooling machine materials.
Coca-Cola Bottling Company's Remanufacturing Centre in Chatham, Ontario, remanufactures and repairs our vending machines, glass
door merchandisers and modular refrigeration systems. The facility also manages special waste and recycles as many materials as possible that can be diverted from landfills.
In 2007 Coca-Cola Bottling Company's Chatham Remanufacturing Centre’s recycling efforts produced these results:
- 47,855 kilograms of plastic vending machine signage was recycled to create engineering resins for the automotive industry
- 1,395,772 kilograms of tin, 3,050 kilograms of copper and 7,117 kilograms of aluminum from obsolete equipment was recycled for various uses
- 18,552 fluorescent lamps were recycled, diverting 6,338 kilograms of glass, 99 kilograms of phosphor and 0.66 kilograms of mercury from landfills
GOALS: sustainable packaging / recycling
- Avoid use of 4,200 metric tons of packaging, almost 3% of projected usage, between 2008 and 2010
- Recycle or recover more than 90% of materials at our production facilities by 2010
- Lead the industry in package recovery
- Increase recycled content in PET bottles to an average of 10% where commercially viable by 2010
For more information on The Coca-Cola Company's sustainable packaging strategy please visit the below links:
* 30% reduction applies to Dasani 355mL, 500mL and 591mL PET bottles.
** The Plastic Twist-Off Closure is currently available on sparkling PET bottles under one litre and Dasani bottles one litre and under.
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