with the commitment of the london organizing committee of the olympic and paralympic games locog to a zerowastetolandfill objective, recycling of all soft drink bottles disposed at the venues of the olympic and paralympic to new bottles within six weeks was pledged by cocacola. expecting to sell almost 20 million bottles of cocacola products during the games was a difficult attempt. a cocacola spokesperson told plasticstoday that recycling bottletobottle has been undertaken for the first time on a large scale in a short timeframe. however, they were certaianly it could take locog a significant way toward its zero waste goal. for meeting this goal plans were fasttracked by the company to start the £15 million 24 million joint venture with eco plastics known as continuum recycling. it is the largest plastics recycling facility in the world today. 290 tonnes of waste have been diverted from landfill, an estimated 310 tonnes of carbon dioxide have been saved, and around 42 million new bottles could be used with the sufficient material provided, due to this move. in the past, about twothirds of used plastics packaging exported for reprocessing was obtained from europe as recycled plastic by cocacola. sita, the waste partner of locog, separated the contents of the bins at the games and took the bottles to continuum recycling for processing them into foodgrade rpet flake. they were made into new bottles at one of cocacola enterprises&39 six uk manufacturing sites, after being transported. a creation of 80 million new bottles would result as an estimate of cocacola. the work has paid off as 10.5 million bottles have been recycled following the collection from london 2012 as per the latest claim by cocacola. these recycled bottles have reached the shelves of great britain in the form of new bottles. the spokesperson said that the games benefited from continuum recycling as well as the country and it will continue. every year, about 33,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide will be saved and the amount of bottlegrade recycled plastic in great britain will be doubled. all their pet packaging will have 25 rpet by the end of this year as per their target. the spokesperson further said that the process of converting clear bottles collected from london 2012 venues into new bottles will still continue to be recycled. the sustainability initiatives developed and used by cocacola for london 2012 were reported by good business, which is a europe business consultancy. the report is a record of feasible results with future huge events, and not blueprints. the spokesperson of cocacola stated that the organizers of large events of the future, specifically olympic and paralympic games will be hoped to be inspired by the company. people were educated at the games by cocacola about the speed rate, wherein a plastic bottle can be converted into a new bottle in the uk. the spokesperson further added that when an independent research company quizzed visitors of london 2012, 70 of them, on learning this, said that they would probably recycle at home as an encouragement. as one of the biggest users of packaging in the uk, cocacola continuously seeks the power of their brand to influence consumers for more recycling. a green streak is established by coke cocacola aims to set the standard of sustainable packaging, while attaining zerowaste in their operations and recycling more packaging than used. the spokesperson said that for doing this, they need to view every aspect of packaging that includes design, weight, recycled content, renewable materials and recycling process. sustainable packaging and value chain carbon reduction strategy of the company continues to mainly include light weighing bottles and cans. moreover, for retaining their integrity, ways of removing additional material from the packages is sought by the company. the weight of the 500ml pet bottle has been reduced to 21.7g by the company from 39g in 1994. as per the existing volume, an estimate of over 3900 metric tons of pet each year has been saved according to cocacola. the company persists in reducing the amount of plastic in its bottles even in 2012 by focusing on 1liter bottles and 500ml bottles for still and sparkling drinks. the spokesperson explained that they expect the most sustainable plastic packaging in the future to consist of a plantbased pet and rpet combo for reducing the amount of virgin materials used. ways of manufacturing pet from renewable materials have been sorted by the cocacola system, which has progressed excellently lately. the launch of the cocacola plantbottle was in 2009, and in 2011, great britain was introduced to it. the spokesperson further confirmed that for identify the blend of rpet and plant pet, they are presently developing their carbon analysis systems to receive the lowest carbon footprint in the future. they intend to have a combination of plantbased material and rpet in all pet bottles by 2020. source of information httpwww.plasticstoday.comarticlesukcocacolaprovidesupdateaboutlondon2012rec…
