Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE) and ECO Plastics create pioneering joint venture called Continuum Recycling limited. The name of the new business reflects to its core activity which will be based on re-processing plastic bottles in Great Britain. Used plastic bottles will be recycled in Lincolnshire and the high quality materials produced will be re-used in new Coca-Cola bottles.Focus on sustainable packaging and recycling leads Coca-Cola Enterprises to establish Continuum Recycling limited.
"We are delighted to see that work has started on the new facilities where Continuum Recycling will reprocess bottles to produce high quality material for reuse in our packaging. We are also really pleased to see the start of recruitment for the skilled roles which will make this new business a great success (...) Continuum Recycling is a great name for the business; it explains how effective recycling will lead to a continuous process of use, recycling and reuse for plastic bottles. This is a really important step in CCE's journey to transform recycling in GB.", said Nick Brown, Commercial Recycling Manager at Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd.
The new facility will increase the amount of high-quality bottle-grade rPET currently produced in the UK to more than 75,000 tonnes a year, which will be more than doubling the current total. After beeing transformed into food-grade rPET pellet by Continuum Recycling will be used in Coca-Cola bottles, enabling Coca-Cola Enterprises to meet its target of including 25% recycled PET in all its plastics packaging by 2012.
Thanks to ECO Plastics' superior cleaning technology will be possible the most use of the plastic it sorts, producing 11 different streams of plastic, including food-grade PET. Moreover independent research has shown that ECO Plastics' process is 68% less carbon intensive than using virgin plastics for packaging.
“ECO Plastics' plant is already the largest and most sophisticated in Europe and having put the finishing touches to a £24 million financing packaging in the last month, we will now be able to increase capacity from 100,000 tonnes to 140,000 tonnes of mixed plastic bottles per year, just under 50% of the total collected last year”, said Jonathan Short, Managing Director of ECO Plastics.
