Our beverage packaging is designed to deliver high-quality products safely to customers and consumers. Even though our containers are made almost entirely from materials that can be recycled and reused, thousands of tons of aluminum, plastic, and glass end up in landfills each year.

We invested US$8 million in packaging and recycling initiatives in 2008. With recycling rates averaging only 40 percent across our territories, we are taking a leadership role to increase recycling. We are working with NGOs, suppliers, customers, and consumers to increase recycling and eliminate waste. Our long-term goal is to recycle and recover the equivalent of 100 percent of our packaging. In our own facilities, we have committed to recycle at least 90 percent of our solid waste by the end of 2010.

We established Coca-Cola Recycling LLC (CCR) in 2007 to help us work toward our recycling goals. The first such organization in the non-alcoholic beverage industry, CCR directly engages hundreds of thousands of consumers in North America, providing them with opportunities to recycle and educating them about the positive impact recycling can have on their communities. Additionally, CCR has implemented facility recycling programs such as Target 100 and the Centralized Recycling Inititiave, to help our facilities reduce waste.

As a result of these recycling initiatives and other activities, Coca-Cola Recycling has recovered and recycled almost 125,000 metric tons of packaging in 2008, which is more than halfway to achieving our goal of recovering more than 200,000 metric tons of packaging materials by 2010. Two new polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle-to-bottle recycling facilities opened in our territories in 2008, helping us to gain access to recycled PET materials. Located in the United States and Great Britain, these facilities will significantly help in providing the dependable and cost-effective stream of food-grade recycled PET that we need. These new facilities will allow us to purchase recycled material locally and incorporate it into new bottles, closing the recycling loop.

Increasing recycling provides significant business benefits. We cut our costs when we reduce waste; and we generate additional revenue when we recycle valuable materials. By integrating recycling programs and consumer education into our activities, we strengthen our relationships with customers and consumers, and demonstrate our commitment to the communities where we do business.

Reducing Packaging

We continue to work with packaging suppliers and others to minimize the packaging we use, pioneering new technology in our industry. Reducing the weight of our packaging not only helps us to avoid using valuable virgin materials, but also helps reduce carbon emissions over the entire lifecycle of a beverage container — from the manufacturing process to transportation of the packaging. In addition to reporting progress in terms of materials avoided, we are also studying the carbon fooprint of our packaging (see case study on page 15).

Our goal is to avoid the use of 100,000 metric tons of packaging materials between 2007 and 2010, approximately three percent of our projected usage. We made good progress in 2008 through various initiatives, eliminating approximately 31,000 metric tons of materials, or about 2.7 percent of our total packaging use, during the year.

• Closures — After launching the first low-profile plastic twist-off closure on sparkling beverages in 2007, we extended its use throughout our U.S. and Canadian bottling facilities. The closure is now used on all single-serve PET bottles of Dasani and sparkling beverages 24 ounces and below. These new closures are 24 percent lighter and reduced our use of resin by 13,000 metric tons in 2008. We are also testing a low-profile closure for larger bottles in North America and Europe that will avoid the use of 7,600 metric tons of resin annually.
• Cans — In a groundbreaking project, we worked with the British recycling agency, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), and European can suppliers to make aluminum cans five percent lighter. This is the first time the body of the can has been lightweighted in Europe, as previous weight reductions were made only to the base. The innovative can specification has set a new standard across Europe, with major beverage brands and brewers adopting the lighter can. The new design is expected to avoid an annual 15,000 metric tons of aluminum.
• PET bottles — In the United States, we continue to reduce the weight of our Dasani water bottles, avoiding the use of more than 10,500 metric tons of PET each year. In Europe, we identified opportunities to further lightweight our 500mL PET bottle in partnership with WRAP. By reducing the bottle’s weight by two grams, we will save more than 700 metric tons of PET each year.
• Glass bottles — We reduced the weight of our iconic 330mL glass contour bottle in Great Britain by 20 percent, saving more than 3,500 metric tons of glass.

In 2009, the Coca-Cola system unveiled a packaging innovation — a plastic bottle that is made partially from plants. The “PlantBottle™” is fully recyclable, requires less petroleum, and reduces carbon emissions. This new material is made through an innovative process that turns sugar cane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production, into a key component for PET plastic.

Manufacturing the new plastic bottle is more environmentally efficient as well. A lifecycle analysis conducted by Imperial College of London indicates the PlantBottle, with 30 percent plant-based material, reduces carbon emissions by up to 25 percent, compared with petroleum-based PET. In addition, the PlantBottle can be processed through existing manufacturing and recycling facilities without contaminating traditional PET, thus can be used, recycled, and reused again and again. The PlantBottle will be piloted with Dasani and sparkling brands in select North American markets later this year and with vitaminwater in select markets in 2010. These bottles will be identified through on-package messaging and in-store point-of-sale displays.

Secondary Packaging

We have begun reducing the weight of our secondary packaging by eliminating the side walls on corrugated cardboard trays that carry multipacks of our products. This results in a reduction of the material in each tray by up to 40 percent. Additionally, we have partnered with The Coca-Cola Company and the University of Washington to launch the first compostable paper cups for soft drinks. Made from renewable resources, the cup will help the university meet Seattle’s requirement that all food-service packaging be compostable by 2010.

Collective Action

We support industry initiatives to reduce packaging in the marketplace. In Great Britain, we are members of the Courtauld Commitment, a partnership between WRAP and food manufacturers and retailers to reduce packaging and food waste. In 2008, WRAP announced that the grocery sector had halted packaging growth and was on track to decrease packaging and food waste by 2010.

Increasing Recycled Content

The PET, aluminum, and glass used in our packaging are recyclable, and we are working to increase the amount of recycled content in our packages. Recycled aluminum accounts for more than half of the content of our cans, while our glass bottles contain up to 45 percent recycled content. The average recycled content in our PET bottles is approximately four percent, but varies significantly from region to region. We are working diligently to overcome the challenges associated with increasing this recycled content across our system.

Our goal is to raise the recycled content of our PET bottles to 10 percent in North America and to 25 percent in Europe, where we have a higher baseline. However, we can reach our goals only if recycled content is economically and commercially viable. Currently, most recycled PET is being channeled into industries such as carpeting and textiles — not into new beverage containers, which require the highest food-grade material. Therefore, we are tackling the issues of quality, cost, and reliability associated with sourcing recycled PET as we move to grow our recycled content.

As part of a joint venture of The Coca-Cola Company and New United Resource Recovery Corporation (NURRC), the world’s largest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility opened in 2008 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. This puts our business system in a unique position, by having equity positions in businesses at each point in the supply chain — recovery, recycling, and reuse. We now have the opportunity to close the recycling loop within our system and gain access to post-consumer food-grade PET that can be used in many applications, including PET bottles for our beverages.

Promoting Recycling

Our long-term goal is to recover the equivalent of 100 percent of our beverage packaging — yet with recycling rates across our territories at around 40 percent, achieving our goal will require a change in mind-set and behavior among consumers.

Recycling on the Go

A major focus of our recycling efforts is to help consumers recycle beverage containers when they are away from home. Without a convenient way for people to recycle them, empty containers can often end up in the trash or as litter. In every country where we operate, we are developing on-the-go recycling programs that are designed to collect and recycle packaging in high-profile locations where our beverages are consumed. In North America, Coca-Cola Recycling (CCR) offers us a unique and innovative platform to engage consumers directly, educating them about recycling and providing them with easy access to recycling infrastructure, such as bins. During 2008, the CCR Recycling Education Vehicle conducted recycling activities at 115 major events in 21 states, including NASCAR races, the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and the NCAA Men’s Final Four™, among others. CCR also conducted activities on 19 college campuses, as well as at a growing number of customer premises. In 2008, more than 40,000 people took part in our recycling-themed activities, which included games, quizzes, and rewards, while millions more were exposed to our recycling messages.

In Great Britain, we launched our Recycle Zone program, which is helping to make recycling on-the-go part of everyday life. Working with customers, the government recycling agency WRAP, and British recycling charity Recoup, we have set up 20 Recycle Zones in high-traffic areas, such as theme parks, public transportation hubs, hospitals, and shopping malls. We provide recycling bins, help establish back-end recycling infrastructure, work with waste management contractors, and support consumer activation. Our goal is to create 80 Recycle Zones by 2011, placing them in a wide range of locations, from airports to workplaces. We are implementing similar programs for customers in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Curbside Recycling

The greatest opportunity to increase recycling occurs in homes, where the majority of products are consumed. CCR is actively working with municipalities, recyclers, and others to support the establishment of residential curbside recycling programs, where they do not exist. In a partnership with the American Beverage Association and The Climate Group, we are working to improve recycling rates through the “Full Circle Plan.” This plan supports community programs that make recycling easier for consumers, and it is currently piloting in Knoxville, Tennessee and Hartford, Connecticut.

In-House Recycling

We are also changing mind-sets within our own operations. We have a number of locally driven recycling initiatives at our facilities, including a program that challenges all of our production facilities to recover and recycle more than 90 percent of their waste by 2010. By the end of 2008, 26 of our 79 production facilities had achieved that goal, including all of our European production facilities. These European facilities are now striving toward a more aggressive goal to reach an average recycling rate of 98 percent.

In North America this initiative is called Target 100. Coca-Cola Recycling assisted an additional 10 North American production facilities in achieving the goal of recycling more than 90 percent of their waste. By showing our operations the value of materials they previously discarded as trash, we recycled more than 5,600 metric tons of material, diverting it from landfills. In these operations, we moved from paying waste disposal costs to creating a new revenue stream.

In early 2009, one of our flagship Target 100 facilities, Bellevue, Washington, earned the 2009 Recycler of the Year Award from the Washington State Recycling Association for the facility’s outstanding Target 100 implementation. The Bellevue facility produces 68 metric tons of potential waste per month of which an average of 96 percent is recycled through the Target 100 initiative.

Another facility recycling program we have in place is the Centralized Recycling Initiative (CRI). This program is designed to recover and utilize recyclable materials from our sales/distribution facilities, through the establishment of a central collection point at a nearby production facility. As part of CRI, sales/distribution facilities collect and return recyclable materials to the central collection facility for processing. The result is improved recovery rates and cost savings related to third-party processing. Coca-Cola Recycling has expanded the CRI by establishing 16 central collection centers in 2008, bringing our total to 23. We recovered and recycled approximately 1,600 metric tons of PET and aluminum through the CRI program in 2008. We have plans to expand the program to an additional five facilities in 2009.

Online

• WRAP
• NURRC
• Full Circle Plan

1. CO₂e is “Carbon Dioxide equivalent” — meaning that it also takes into account other greenhouse gases produced in operations.