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Corporate Responsibility Review 2008/2009
 
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Recycling initiatives

We've made some big steps in reducing our waste and stepping up our recycling programmes in recent years. But there's only so much the industry can do on its own. Recycling is everybody's responsibility - and if we're going achieve our recycling goals we're going to need our consumers' help.

The overwhelming majority of our products in Great Britain are sold in 100% recyclable packaging - but of course, it's up to consumers themselves to recycle it. We're constantly looking for ways to encourage everyone to do this.

Our recyclable packaging is a channel in itself to communicate with consumers:

  • We feature the clear Recycle Now logo on our cans and bottles
  • Where we have more room on our can multipacks, we print messages about the benefits of recycling aluminium

Here are a few examples of the ways we encourage recycling:

Recycling 'on-the-go' with Recycle Zone

Thanks to continuing investment in facilities by local authorities, household recycling in Great Britain is increasing in leaps and bounds. However, 'on-the-go' recycling facilities are still scarce. We know that people drink our products while they're out and about, so we wanted to find a way to help provide more bins to make recycling easier outside the home.

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In 2008, CCE launched Recycle Zone in partnership with WRAP - the UK's first on-the-go recycling scheme

  • The Recycle Zone at Thorpe Park in Surrey gives people at the theme park a place to put their empty bottles and cans where they will be collected and recycled
  • This was the first part of a three-year plan to create 80 Recycle Zones in busy locations around the country by 2011
  • There are currently over 30 live Recycle Zones at theme parks - such as Legoland and Chessington World of Adventures - shopping centres, student campuses, hospitals and travel hubs
  • Our biggest Recycle Zone is at Manchester Airport which has 150 branded bins on site.
  • Recycle Zone collected around 18 tonnes of recycled materials from inception to October 2009

We're working in partnership with the recycling charity, Recoup, to offer guidance for each participating location about how best to collect and recycle the cans and bottles people leave at the Recycle Zones.

With a target of increasing the national recycling rate to 40 percent by 2010, programmes such as Recycle Zone from Coca-Cola Enterprises are vital to the United Kingdom hitting its targets.

Joan Ruddock,
Minister of State for Waste and Recycling

This is a fantastic initiative and we are proud to be the first location to implement a Recycle Zone. Thorpe Park has considerable potential for recycling, with over 421,000 bottles and cans sold every year.

Peter Ronchetti,
Divisional Director at Thorpe Park

http://www.recycle-zone.co.uk

 

Recycle Week Coke Can Creations

We wanted to raise awareness of the value of empty packaging and encourage more people to recycle their drinks cans and bottles. So CCGB commissioned four British artists to create giant sculptures of iconic British landmarks made from
Coca-Cola, diet Coke and Coke Zero cans. The unveiling of the sculptures marked the beginning of Recycle Week in June 2008.

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The Angel of the North, Big Ben, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Birmingham Bull were re-created in spectacular form, surprising and delighting consumers. The sculptures also encouraged them to think of aluminium as a precious metal with real value and the ability to live again through recycling.

We had great feedback about them and very positive engagement from the local authorities around Birmingham, Bristol, Gateshead and London. The Birmingham Bull also appeared at the Conservative Party Conference in the city that year as a reminder of the importance of recycling to the environment.

Recycle Week is a fantastic initiative and does a huge amount to encourage us all to recycle more. I hope the sight of one of London's most famous landmarks made from recycled drink cans will inspire Londoners to make an extra effort to recycle their rubbish, rather than chuck it in the bin and condemn it to a landfill site.

Boris Johnson,
Mayor of London

See Plastic Differently

Christmas can be a time of excess, when the importance of conserving resources and reducing waste sometimes gets forgotten. In the run up to the 2008 festive season, CCGB commissioned a limited edition range of exclusive Christmas decorations made out of recycled plastic.

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Designed by cult design duo Basso & Brooke and musician and TV personality Alex James, the decorations were part of a campaign called See Plastic Differently. This encouraged people to think twice about throwing away their empty plastic drinks bottles.

The designer collaborators also created giant Christmas trees made from recycled plastic. All these decorations were designed to make consumers look at plastic in a new light - demonstrating the potential value of empty drinks bottles and how they could be given a second lease of life through recycling.

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The decorations were available through www.cokezone.co.uk. With every one ordered, Coca-Cola made a donation of £5 to Together, the climate change charity.