Waste, packaging and recycling
Recycling
We believe we have a responsibility to recycle as much of our own waste as possible and to encourage consumers to recycle more soft drinks packaging.
We’ve seen significant progress in recent years with rates of packaging recycling in Great Britain doubling from 27% in 1998 to 56% in 200610. Yet there is still more that can be done to increase recycling rates still further. While soft drinks packaging is one of the most recycled consumer packages worldwide, only 25% of PET bottles and 48% of aluminium beverage cans are currently recycled in the UK11.
- 90%
- of waste at our sites is now recycled or recovered.
Recycling our own waste
We perform well in terms of minimising the waste from our own manufacturing sites in Great Britain. We met self-imposed landfill reduction targets in both 2005 and 2006 and have invested significantly in recycling at our six manufacturing sites in Great Britain. As a result, nearly 90% of waste at our sites is now recycled or recovered. Only 10% goes to landfill – a 68% reduction since 2002.
Cleaning up at Milton Keynes
Under the leadership of Quality, Safety & Environment Manager, Chris Shoel, the team at CCE’s manufacturing site at Milton Keynes has been working hard to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfill. The site, which produces more than 30% of our canned products in Great Britain, has invested over £100,000 in infrastructure, equipment and staff training to support the separation of waste for recycling.
Environment Champions have been appointed within each manufacturing shift to raise environmental awareness and change people’s behaviour. All our waste has been carefully analysed and skips designated for landfill are now audited in order to recover waste that can be recycled instead.
Equipment has also been introduced to aid the collection, processing and compacting of waste and suppliers have been challenged to reduce the amount of packaging waste supplied to the site.
These changes have produced a dramatic, tenfold reduction in the amount of waste sent to landfill over the last three years. The site now landfills less than two tonnes of waste per month – less than 2% of all the solid waste produced at the site and far less than the 64 tonnes per month sent to landfill in 2002. During 2006, nearly 98% of waste from the site was either recycled or recovered.
What’s more, the recycling efforts have made good business sense with Milton Keynes now reporting savings of over £2,000 a month through the sale of recyclable materials and cuts in the cost of waste sent to landfill.
As a result of this work, Milton Keynes was recognised as ‘best practice’ by The Environment Agency in July 2006. In October that year, Chris Shoel – CCE’s Quality, Safety & Environment Manager, Milton Keynes – won the Commercial Recycling Champion of the Year Award at the letsrecycle.com Awards for Excellence.
We would like Milton Keynes to be the first CCE site to reach zero landfill from manufacturing. Our target is achievable – we just need to continue to be innovative.” CHRIS SHOEL, QUALITY, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT MANAGER, MILTON KEYNES
Encouraging consumers to recycle
We’re committed to working with organisations such as WRAP to reduce the amount of packaging thrown away by households in Great Britain.
- 50%
- average recycled content in our aluminium cans.
The vast majority of our products in Great Britain are sold in recyclable packaging, but it is down to consumers to recycle our bottle and cans. We are looking to encourage our consumers to recycle more. All our recyclable packages feature a ’Please Recycle’ message and we’re working with WRAP to develop a clearer, more prominent message for our cans and bottles.
In Great Britain, the Producer Responsibility Packaging Waste Regulations set recycling targets for businesses that produce packaging waste.
Under these regulations, we have legal obligations that we meet through a contractual relationship with Valpak. Valpak runs the UK’s leading compliance scheme under which money from CCE is re-invested in the UK’s recycling infrastructure. Since 2000, CCE has invested over £6 million in this way.
Talent From Trash - Encouraging Recycling
In September 2007 we will be running a programme in partnership with 13 Football League clubs to encourage football fans to recycle more of their waste.
‘Talent from Trash’ will encourage people to recycle more of their waste via local authority kerbside collection schemes and Tesco front-of-store recycling facilities. Participating football clubs will be rewarded with money to buy new youth players in direct proportion to the amount of cans and bottles their fans recycle over the 12-week period.
The aim is to help kick-start the recycling habit among groups that do not usually recycle their waste.
We will be sharing findings from the programme with our partners.
For more information on the Talent From Trash programme please visit the following link: www.talent-from-trash.com
10 DEFRA
11 ALUPRO
