Coke puts money where its mouth is

KENYA is set to benefit from 3.8 billion shillings (R550 million) to stimulate plastic recycling industries and create awareness about waste pollution.

Sponsored by the Coca-Cola Company, the programme will focus on southern, east and central Africa over the next three years.

The Coca-Cola Company accelerated the collection and recycling of PET plastic bottles across southern and east Africa to commemorate Global Recycling Day, marked on Monday.

“This is part of a focused World Without Waste campaign over three years and beyond,” Ahmed Rady, the general manager of Coca-Cola East and Central Africa Franchise said.

“We have formulated strategies to ensure that our post-consumer plastic bottles do not pollute the environment. We are creating value from our bottles in a bid to drive and sustain a green economy.”

He said that under the World Without Waste campaign, it would design bottles which were easy to recycle and partly out of recycled material; create collecting opportunities by stimulating recycling industries as well as partner with others in the value chain to reduce plastic waste.

Rady said that in Kenya, Coca-Cola and its bottling partners joined industry partners last year to form PET Recycling Company Limited (Petco Kenya) to spearhead initiatives to collect and recycle PET bottles and packaging, as well as create a favourable environment for the investment of additional capital in the PET sector in production and recycling.

This year, the plan was to accelerate collection and recycling in partnership with industry through establishing Voluntary Extended Producer Responsibility schemes. |