Coca-Cola Recycles Label Waste To Help Create 90 Million Smartwater Bottles

Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) has teamed up with the label company Avery Dennison, recycling waste management company Viridor, and plastics company PET UK to reduce carbon footprints and use label waste in the production process to create 90 million Smartwater bottles.

During the production process, Smartwater's self-adhesive bottle labels are carried on transparent plastic (PET) liners, which then become waste after the labels are applied, according to a case study.

Through collaborative effort to make use of the liners instead of disposing them, the liners undergo a process and treatment to become a raw material, and then to produce recycled PET resin. The recycled materials are used to create items such as staple fibers for sheets used in the production of trays used to carry Smartwater labels.

"Our economy needs to evolve from the current 'take-make-dispose' model and we need a more circular, longer term way of thinking," Joe Franses, director of corporate responsibility and sustainability for CCEP, told Beverage Daily.

"Businesses which can truly be innovative with the products and services they provide, optimizing the resources the use and encouraging consumers to do the same, have the potential to transform our economy."

By reusing PET liners instead of incinerating or disposing them, CCEP is expected to save ‎around £25,000 annually.

Avery Dennison, which launched in 2014, has partnered with numerous other beverage brands that want to save money and have a more positive impact on the environment, Xander van der Viles, sustainability director for Avery Dennison, told Beverage Daily. 

Updated on Jan. 6, 2017 to include the process of how recycled PET liners are used to produce Smartwater bottles.