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Coca-Cola's fully recyclable bottles are repeatedly used as raw material for more new bottles to support closed-loop recycling systems and circular economies for PET

Coke is the first company in the Netherlands and Norway to fill its entire portfolio of locally produced beverage brands in 100% recycled polyethene terephthalate (rPET) packaging to support the company's global strategy for a world without waste.

Both markets switched all small plastic bottles to 100% rPET in October – including Coca-Cola, Sprite and Fanta – and large plastic bottles will follow in 2021. Norway and the Netherlands join Sweden, which completed the switch to 100% rPET in December 2019.

Coca-Cola is currently bottling beverages in 100% rPET in 18 markets around the world, a number that continues to rise during the pandemic.

The fully recyclable bottles are repeatedly used as raw material for more new bottles to support closed-loop recycling systems and circular economies for PET. By switching to 100% rPET in both countries, the use of more than 14,000 tons of new plastic based on crude oil per year will be avoided.

Joe Franses, vice president of sustainability at Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), said the transition is an important step in the Coca-Cola system's path in Western Europe to eliminate virgin oil-based plastic in its packaging within the next decade .

As part of the joint sustainability action plan "This is Forward", Coca-Cola Western Europe and its local bottling partners at CCEP have committed to collecting a can or bottle for every can or bottle sold and to ensuring that all packaging is and is fully recyclable by 2025 Make sure that at least 50% of the contents of PET bottles are made from recycled material by 2023. Together, these efforts will remove more than 200,000 tons of virgin oil-based PET each year.

Deposit insurance schemes in Norway and the Netherlands support the switch to 100% recycled plastic. "Crucially, this announcement makes a compelling case for the role deposit insurance schemes can play in creating local circular economies for beverage packaging," said Franses. "Markets with well-designed systems like those in Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway not only have high collection rates, but can also collect higher quality material with less contamination."

CCEP recently launched CanCollar, a cardboard packaging solution for multipack cans that is fully recyclable and potentially saves more than 18 tons of plastic annually. CanCollar ring technology was developed in collaboration with Atlanta-based packaging company WestRock and is made from sustainable materials. Neither glue nor adhesives are used, which means that the entire carbon footprint and production costs are reduced to a minimum. The groundbreaking innovation, a first for Europe, will be launched in Spain for the first time in November.

According to Franses, the collaboration with WestRock and Coca-Cola Western Europe supports the system's commitment to reducing difficult-to-recycle plastic in secondary packaging.