INDIA – Coca-Cola India has partnered with 10-Min grocery delivery service, Zepto, to establish a plastic waste management initiative that will organize the process of collection of PET bottles with 100 percent traceability.
The ‘return and recycle’ initiative for PET bottles is an extension of The Coca-Cola Company’s global goal of creating a World Without Waste by finding solutions to global challenges of packaging waste, and is focused on three core pillars.
The pillars include designing all primary consumer packaging to be recyclable by 2025 & using 50% recycled material in all packaging by 2030; Collecting and recycling a bottle or can for every one the company sells by 2030; Partner: Bringing people together to support a healthy, debris-free environment.
In line with this vision, the company’s partnership with Zepto in India intends to create a circular economy for plastic by connecting all participants in the PET recycling value chain.
In the first-of-its-kind initiative, Coca-Cola India will leverage the Zepto two-wheeler distribution network to ‘collect back’ empty PET bottles of any brand from consumers.
Consumers can access the ‘Return PET Bottles’ feature on the Zepto app, where they can opt to return up to four empty PET bottles across any brand. Zepto riders will then collect the bottles during the delivery.
The initiative has been launched in select locations in Mumbai and will further be scaled to other markets in India soon, the companies jointly said in a statement.
Zepto has already been leading a movement for paper bag collection on its app where customers have the option to help reuse bags by returning them to the delivery partner.
Greishma Singh, Vice President, Customer & Commercial Leadership, India & South West Asia Operating Unit, The Coca-Cola Company, said: “At Coca-Cola, we are continuously leveraging our scale and reach across markets to reduce waste pollution and achieve our sustainability goals.”
This innovative partnership with Zepto provides a great platform for generating awareness, influencing behavior, and encouraging consumers to recycle PET bottles in a super convenient way from the comfort of their homes. We hope this partnership will enhance consumers’ inclusion in the path towards a more sustainable, better, shared future.”
Vinay Dhanani, Chief Operating Officer at Zepto, noted Zepto users have an eco-conscious mindset where they have consistently expressed their interest and passion for sustainability.
Being a future-first brand and firm believer in protecting the health of the environment, the grocery delivery service platform sees an opportunity in leveraging its expertise to contribute to environment-friendly initiatives.
In India, The Coca-Cola Company commented that it is active and will continue to work with partner organizations to achieve complete plastic circularity by improving local recycling systems where post-consumer cartons, cans, and bottles are efficiently recycled.
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