IN a bid to reduce plastic waste in the country, Coca-Cola Philippines introduced a road map towards packaging sustainability, which includes building a P1-billion recycling facility in the country.
This was in line with the company’s global campaign “World Without Waste” that started in 2018 that seeks to collect and recycle the same amount of plastic bottles it generates by 2030.
“With our primary packaging in the Philippines being 100% recyclable, we see the potential of capturing its value by creating new and better approaches toward reprocessing and recycling recyclable plastic,” Coca-Cola Philippines President and General Manager Winn Everhart said in a statement.
Mr. Everhart said Coca-Cola targets to design better bottles in order to reduce the need for single-use plastics, improve collecting systems to recycle 100% of the packaging it generates and partner with local government, civil society and private sector to achieve their goals.
Coca-Cola Philippines targets to make all of its packaging made of recyclables by 2025, and use recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles in 50% of its packaging by 2030.
Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc. (CCBPI), the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country, recently announced it is investing P1 billion in a next-generation food-grade recycling facility. The location of the facility has not been disclosed, but it is expected to be within a 100-kilometer radius of the Greater Manila Area.
“We are hoping to break ground this year and that will be fully operational by 2020, the capacity we’re aiming for is around 16,000 metric tons which is actually in line with the plastic reproduced from our packaging over the last three years,” CCBPI President and CEO Gareth McGeown told reporters.
The facility will break down plastic waste into flakes that can be turned to plastic bottles, textile, benches and other materials.
The company also said it will look into different ways they could collect plastic waste, partnering with the existing sectors like junk shops, waste collectors and their consumers.
Coca-Cola also introduced Viva! bottled water as the Philippines’ first beverage bottle made from 100% recycled plastic. — Katrina T. Mina
