Coca-Cola will today reveal that it achieved a target to make a quarter of its plastic drink bottles from recycled materials during the Olympic Games, despite drastically overestimating how much waste visitors would discard for recycling at the venues.
As part of its plans to leave a lasting legacy on the Games, Coke invested £15m in a joint venture recycling facility with ECO Plastics, and pledged to fast-track the processing of every bottle thrown into recycling bins at Games venues, turning them into new bottles within six weeks of being thrown away.
The company had expected to process 20 million drinks bottles collected at Games venues, allowing for the creation of 80 million new plastic bottles each containing 25 per cent rPEt (recycled polyethylene terephthalate).
But the company found visitors recycled half as many bottles as expected, as many people took them home and others mistakenly threw plastic bottles in rubbish bins that were sent to landfill.
Coca-Cola sold 17 million bottles at Games venues, and collected 10.5 million for recycling. As a result, it was able to create 42 million green bottles during the Olympics, avoiding 290 tonnes of waste to landfill and saving an estimated 310 tonnes of carbon.
Speaking to BusinessGreen, Katherine Symonds, Coca Cola's head of sustainable Games team, explained it had overestimated the number of bottles that would be available for recycling, but nevertheless achieved its ambition of including 25 per cent rPET in its new bottles.
"There is no dress rehearsal for an event like the Games so our estimates were always just that," she said.
One problem, swiftly corrected by the London Organising Committee (LOCOG), was that Coke stuck pictures of its bottles on both recycling and rubbish bins. As a result some visitors thought both bins were meant for recycling.
Coca-Cola maintains that it would not have been able to find enough quality rPET to meet the 25 per cent target without investing in the new recycling venture Continuum with ECOPlastics.
The plant in Lincolnshire, promises to turn old plastic into new bottles in less than six weeks, and more than doubled the amount of bottle-grade rPET made in the UK.
The six week target was also promoted to raise consumer confidence about the benefits of recycling, and overcome the belief that some waste sent for recycling ends up in landfill.
"People's perceptions have been the real challenge with recycling recently," said Symonds. "Horizon and Panorama have done awful TV programmes about things ending up in landfill or being shipped to Asia.
"A lot does get recycled and shipped to Asia, but this is a way of reassuring people that it can be done and it is being done.
"Before Continuum was built, two thirds of plastic waste was being shipped overseas to be recycled now only one third is going overseas. When a trusted brand like Coke comes forward and says 'leave it to us, we've got it under control', and then its back on the shelf within six weeks, it gives people a great sense of reassurance."
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