BOTTLING firm Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines Inc. will spearhead a P1-billion project to put up a food-grade recycling facility that will transform used PET plastic bottles into new and recyclable beverage bottles.
The company, now of a unit of Atlanta’s The Coca-Cola Co., said it plans to use at least half of the recycled content in their packaging by 2030.
Gareth McGeown, president of the local bottling firm, said the facility will be located outside Metro Manila. It will collect, sort, clean and wash post-consumer plastic bottles and turn these into new bottles that the company itself will use or be sold to other beverage firms, even if these are their competitors.
McGeown said the facility will have a capacity of 16,000 tons a year and will be the first in Southeast Asia. It will start construction of the facility toward the end of the year and may be operational by 2020.
The total being produced in the country using PET bottles are about 130,000 tons.
He did not state where it will be located, only that it will be 100 kilometers outside of Metro Manila.
McGeown said the local Coke soft-drink maker will only own a portion of the said facility. The rest will be its local partner and an international technology partner.
The company also did not state the equity ownership. “We are covered by a non-disclosure agreement with our partners. Our overall goal is do the right thing on a world without waste. We will he dependent on our local partners, local collection partners and its strategy,” he said.
The facility is not new since Coca-Cola is also doing it in Mexico and South Africa, and the journey for the company to use all or most of its bottling supplies from the recycling facility will take between five years to 10 years.