US – Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast inc., a bottler of Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, and Canada Dry soft drinks in the New England region as well as almost the entirety of upstate New York, is on pace to complete the US$22.61 million expansion of local operations by mid-2023.
The bottler said the Coca-Cola building at 150 Milens Road, Tonawanda, will be demolished and replaced with a 20,000-square-foot office and 43,000-square-foot warehouse. The 150 Milens Road building has 14,460 square feet and was constructed in 1959 as a truck terminal.
In addition, the Coca-Cola building at 200 Milens Road — an 88,121-square-foot facility that is used as a warehouse and distribution center — will also be demolished once the new building is completed.
The company noted that a 49,000-square-foot building will connect to the 150 Milens facilities.
Coca-Cola Beverage Northeast will have a total of 112,000 square feet of office and warehouse space, of that, 92,000 will be for warehouse and distribution. The new facility will be about 9% larger than the current facilities.
Just as the beverage giant, Coca-Cola, is preparing itself for a pick in demand during the upcoming festive season, it has been identified as the worst plastic polluter for five years in a row.
Both for 2022 and the previous five years, PepsiCo and Nestlé occupied the other two positions on the top 3 list of international plastic pollutants.
According to a global brand audit assessment by “Break Free From Plastic,” the most common types of plastics deemed as pollutants were those used to make containers for food, bottles for shampoos and other personal hygiene products, and piping.
As per the report, Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), High-density polyethylene (HDPE), and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) were the most common plastic types found in the last five years in India.
The 2022 Brand Audit report defined the top polluters as “corporations that pollute the most places around the world with the greatest amount of plastic waste.”
The primary criterion is the width of pollution, i.e., the number of countries where the product is found, while the second one is the depth, i.e., the number of branded items found.
In addition, a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the United Nations Environment Programme found the Coca-Cola Company increased its use of plastic packaging by nearly 9% or over 579 million pounds (263 thousand metric tons) from a reported 2.96 million metric tons in 2020 to 3.22 million metric tons in 2021.
This increase coincides with findings from the report that the company failed to make any meaningful progress towards meeting its pledges to increase recycled content in its plastic packaging and decrease its use of virgin plastic packaging.
Through its report, the Break Free From Plastic group has asked polluting corporations to reveal and reduce their global plastic footprint, and redesign product packaging to minimize dependence on plastics.
They have also called on world leaders to push for a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty, keeping in mind the ineffectiveness of voluntary commitments made by corporations.
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