Ocean Rescue: Coca-Cola backs plastic bottle deposit scheme
The drinks giant says a UK-wide deposit scheme is the key to increasing recycling rates and reducing littering.
Monday 16 October 2017 20:54, UK
Britain's biggest drinks manufacturer has told Sky News that plastic bottles should be sold with a deposit that is returned when customers bring back the empty.
Until recently Coca-Cola viewed deposits on bottles as a threat to its business.
But the company now says household "kerbside" recycling has "stalled" and it can't source enough clean plastic to meet its environmental targets.
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Coke has been called to appear before the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee on Tuesday and will argue that a UK-wide deposit scheme is key to increasing recycling rates and reducing littering.
In an exclusive interview Julian Hunt, Vice-President of Coca-Cola European Partners said: "Deposits are going to play a role in how we improve packaging recovery.
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"There is no doubt that if we get a well-designed system that works for everybody then our experience from other markets is that it improves the amount of material collected as well as the quality - and those two things are key."
In Norway, which has a deposit system, 96% of drinks bottles are recycled into new ones, a so-called circular economy.
Coke currently includes 25% recycled material in its bottles, which it sources from Clean Tech, Britain's largest plastic processor.
But it is committed to doubling that by 2020 and needs to source an extra 10,000 tonnes of clean, food-grade plastic.
More than 225,000 tonnes of PET plastic bottles are collected for recycling each year in the UK. But only 31,000 tonnes is used to make new bottles.
Some of the rest is used to make packaging strapping and textile fibre. But much of the rest is sent abroad as mixed household recycling.
"We think that's daft," said Mr Hunt.
"If we are all committed to creating a circular economy in the UK we need more companies like us stepping up, buying material, creating demand and closing the loop."
Coke said any deposit scheme must be run by the industry and backed by a legal framework to prevent companies opting out. Smaller companies would also need greater support, it said.
A major problem for companies using reprocessed plastics is poor sorting of mixed recycling by local authority contractors.
Clean Tech says the plastic it buys in bales that should be 100% PET bottles. But in reality only 60-70% is usable material.
Javed Mawji used to run a specialist PET recycling business called Ecotech London.
It went into administration because high contamination rates made it uneconomic.
"We would find car batteries, metal poles 2-3 feet long, even cannon balls in one," he said.
"That slows down your processing speed, it causes breakages and it reduces the quality of the end product."
But the recycling industry is suspicious of deposits on bottles and believes better public awareness would increase kerbside collections.
Stuart Foster, chief executive of the RECOUP recycling charity said: "We need to increase plastic recycling from households, not just drinks bottles but other bottles, pots, tubs and trays as well.
"Until we've explored those opportunities fully we need to be careful about adapting something that is very different, with all the risks and costs that would bring."
The Environmental Audit Committee is currently investigating the potential role of deposit schemes in the UK.
And the Government has also called for evidence on how they might boost recycling rates.
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