Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) is adopting the British Retail Consortium's (BRC's) On-Pack Recycling Label (OPRL) in an attempt to boost to efforts to reduce the proportion of plastic drinks bottles sent to landfill.
The OPRL logo will initially appear on 500ml bottles of Coca-Cola, Coke Zero and Diet Coke but will be introduced over time across other products and packs made by CCE. The bottler is the country's biggest soft drinks manufacturer – supplying 160,000 outlets with approximately 1.8bn litres of soft drinks a year.
The BRC's director of food and sustainability, Andrew Opie, said: “The On-Pack Recycling Label has become a familiar sight to consumers in the three years since it was introduced. It's great to welcome Coca-Cola Enterprises to the list of nearly 150 signatories, particularly because of what we hope this will mean for plastic bottle recycling.
“Just five out of every 10 plastic bottles sold in the UK is recycled and we would like to see much more. Coca-Cola's adoption of our recycling logo means thousands more people will be reminded every day how easy it is to stop plastic bottles ending up in landfill.”
According to Patrick McGuirk, CCE's recycling director, the company is “serious about setting the industry standard for sustainable packaging”. “That's why we have invested in a £15M facility called Continuum Recycling to more than double the UK's capacity for PET bottle reprocessing,” he added.