Packaging and recycling
Packaging plays a vital role in delivering our beverages safely to customers and consumers. Once the beverage inside has been consumed, however, the package can become either valuable material for recycling or recovery in heat capture incineration plants – or waste, ending up in landfill.
We are working to reduce the environmental impacts of our packaging at every stage of its lifecycle. Our integrated approach includes:
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Reducing the amount of packaging we use •
Increasing recycled content •
Promoting recycling and recovery Ultimately, we aim to close the recycling loop: turning used packaging into new containers. The bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Austria that Coca-Cola Hellenic helped set up, for example, now provides the Company with a high-quality and cost-effective supply of recycled material to make into new bottles.
In addition to minimizing waste from our beverage packaging, we are also reducing production waste from our bottling plants.
Minimizing the amount of packaging we use is one of the most significant ways that we can reduce its environmental impact. In addition to using less material, this helps to reduce the carbon footprint of packaging throughout its lifecycle: from manufacture to transportation to disposal or recycling.
• Our Danube PET bottle is one of the lightest in the marketplace. It weighs only 15g and is over a third lighter than its predecessor.
• The Ultra-Glass bottle, which uses a third less glass, is now used in Serbia and 16 other countries in which Coca-Cola Hellenic operates.
Our beverage containers consist mostly of recyclable materials: PET plastic, aluminum, steel and glass. Since these are among the most widely recycled packaging materials, another way we can reduce the impact of our packaging is to increase the recycled content in them. By using recycled aluminum in cans, for example, we save up to 95% of the energy required when using virgin aluminum.
Our aluminium cans and glass bottles already contain up to 60% recycled content. Including recycled PET plastic in our bottles presents a challenge in terms of availability and cost.
Our business uses up to 15% recycled PET in seven countries. In Serbia we are tackling the challenges involved in using recycled PET.
We help set up recycling infrastructure and encourage consumers to recycle their beverage packaging.
We are working to establish a packaging management scheme in Serbia , as we have across the Coca-Cola Hellenic business. We are one of the founders of the Sekopak organization which advocates the enforcing of legal frameworks in the field of packaging and packaging waste, emulating and adhering to regulations stipulated by the EU Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste which imposes an obligation of reusing and recycling to all stakeholders up to the end user – i.e. manufacturers, packing/bottling plants, importers, distributors and retailers - compelling them to reuse packaging they market in a percentage set out by government. This principle of “waste generator liability” is incorporated in the Serbian Law on waste management and the Law on packaging and packaging waste adopted by the Parliament of Serbia in May 2009.
To date, the Company has helped set up systems in 19 countries, co-owning 17 recycling and recovery organizations.
Reducing production waste
In addition to minimizing waste from our beverage containers in the marketplace, we are increasing recycling and minimizing waste in our own bottling plants.
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