FDBusiness.com

The amount of PET plastic bottles collected for recycling across Europe last year rose by more than 6% to reach almost 1.5 million tonnes, according to a report commissioned by two industry bodies. European PET container body Petcore and plastics recycling association EuPR said European post-sorting PET collection increased to 1.45 million tonnes in 2010, an increase of 6.5% compared to 2009.

Coca-Cola Hellenic has pioneered the establishment of packaging recovery organisations that collect, recycle and recover packaging waste in 19 countries in which it operates. In 2010, an estimated 79,000 tonnes of PET bottles which contained Coca-Cola Hellenic products were recovered.

The ultimate goal for Coca-Cola Hellenic, which last year invested almost Eur42m in recovering PET bottles, is to close the recycling loop by converting used packages into new. In Austria, the company co-owns a bottle-to-bottle recycling plant, which recycles up to 570 million bottles each year.

Sabine Strnad, resources recovery manager at Coca-Cola Hellenic, says: “We are committed to continuing our close cooperation with governments and the industry in order to promote collection mechanisms, technological innovations and sorting techniques. Our ultimate aim is to create truly sustainable closed loop packaging solutions.”