Coca-Cola is to increase the amount of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50 per cent, the company has announced-a doubling of the current amount of 25 per cent.The new target will be reached by 2020 and comes as drinks manufacturers face increasing pressure to make their products more environmentally friendly.One million plastic bottles are purchased worldwide every minute-a total of 480 billion each year. Around 100 billion of these are thought to be Coca-Cola bottles.The company, whose brands include Fanta, Sprite, Oasis, Lilt and Schweppes in addition to its traditional cola drink, said it will invest millions of pounds in buying recycled plastic from “Europe’s largest and most advanced plastic bottle recycling facility” in Lincolnshire in order to meet its new target.It means a Coca-Cola bottle could be recycled and returned to the shelf in its new form within six weeks.Jon Woods, general manager of Coca-Cola Britain, told The Guardian: “Doubling the amount of recycled material in all of our plastic bottles is a significant investment and sends a clear signal we want to play a positive role in supporting the circular economy here in Great Britain”.While all Coca-Cola bottles are recyclable, few are actually recycled. In Great Britain alone, almost half (43per cent) are not recycled and the figure will be significantly lower in many countries, where recycling facilities are rarer or non-existent.
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