Coca-Cola in the Netherlands and Coca-Cola in Norway plan to transition to plastic bottles made from 100% recycled plastic (rPET).
Following last year’s announcement that Coca-Cola in Sweden would become the first market to switch to 100% rPET, Coca-Cola in the Netherlands has announced that from October 2020 it will transition all its locally produced small plastic bottles to 100% rPET.
Large plastic bottles will follow in 2021, making it the second market to transition its locally produced portfolio to 100% rPET.
The switch to 100% rPET in the Netherlands will eliminate the use of more than 10,000 tonnes of new virgin oil-based plastic, amounting to a 21% reduction in the carbon footprint of its plastic bottles per year compared to the rPET level before the transition, when the portfolio in the Netherlands already consisted of more than 50% recycled PET.
Additionally, during the first half of 2021, Coca-Cola in Norway will transition to 100% rPET for all plastic bottles that it produces locally.
This transition will remove around 4,300 tonnes of new virgin oil-based plastic a year, and will deliver a 28% reduction in the carbon footprint of its plastic bottles per year compared with the rPET level before the switch when the portfolio in Norway was approximately 25% rPET.
Both Coca-Cola in the Netherlands and Coca-Cola in Norway will be the first companies in their respective countries to move their entire portfolio of locally produced plastic bottles to 100% rPET.
This move supports Coca-Cola’s ambition in Western Europe to accelerate towards the use of 100% rPET and the elimination of new virgin oil-based PET in all of its bottles within the next decade.
This will contribute to removing a total of over 200,000 tonnes of new virgin, oil-based PET from its packaging portfolio a year as Coca-Cola in Western Europe transitions to local circular economies for PET packaging.
A key enabler for Coca-Cola’s switch to 100% recycled plastic material in the Netherlands and Norway is the rapidly expanding and effective Deposit Return Schemes operational in both countries.
Supported by innovation in recycling technologies, Deposit Return Schemes have enabled the production of high quality rPET resin in both Dutch and Norwegian markets, thus accelerating the transition to local circular economies for PET in these countries.
Therefore, Coca-Cola’s 100% rPET bottles produced in each market will be fully recyclable, so they can be used again as raw material for new bottles.
