Coca-Cola is increasingly relying on the use of rPET
Coca-Cola is increasing the use of recycled material in PET single-use deposit bottles and is taking a further step in Germany in 2021: the PET bottles of the ViO, Fuze Tea and Powerade brands will be completely converted to rPET. For all other brands, all bottles up to a size of 0.5l as well as the 1.5l and 2.0l bottles will in future be made entirely of rPET. This means that Coca-Cola in Germany will achieve a share of recycled material of around 70 per cent for PET single-use bottles this year.
In Germany, Coca-Cola is saving around 32,000t of virgin PET material this year, and with it around 57,000t of CO2.
The switch to rPET involves significant investment and also challenges. For example, Coca-Cola is spending more than €15 million this year to procure the recycled material, which is significantly more expensive than virgin material. In addition, high-quality, food-grade rPET is not yet available in sufficient quantities to convert all of the company’s PET bottles. This is why Coca-Cola is investing in innovative recycling technologies, such as those from CuRe Technology, and in long-term supply agreements with recycling partners, in order to promote capacity expansions and innovations. In terms of secondary packaging, the company is also committed to saving material where possible and switching to recycled material.
In the area of returnable and refillable packaging, new investments mainly concern glass: most recently, two new returnable deposit bottles were launched on the German market in 2019 with the 1l glass bottles for Coca-Cola Classic, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar and the mineral water ViO. These investments are to be continued this year, including a new 0.4l returnable glass bottle.
