NIGERIA – As part of its commitment to driving its global World Without Waste agenda, Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited’s bottling partner, Nigerian Bottling Company Limited (NBC), has launched a Plastic Recycling Bank in partnership with Recycle Points.
The recycling station, which is located at its Ikeja manufacturing plant in Lagos, will aid the collection of PET plastics and ensure they are recycled.
Recycle Points, a waste recycling and social benefit organization at the forefront of tackling the challenge of improperly disposed plastic waste in the country, will operate the recycling bank, reports The Eagle Online.
Managing Director of NBC, Matthieu Seguin during the launch said, “The world has a packaging waste problem, and our ‘World Without Waste’ vision aims to help address it, and we want to help lead the way.
“Our position is, for every bottle we produce, we want it back. We believe every package has value and life beyond its initial use and should be collected and recycled into either a new package or another beneficial use.”
Beverage giant Coca-Cola targets to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle it sells, and reach 50% recycled content of all its packaging by 2030.
“We will be scaling up this intervention, with the establishment of more recycling banks in other parts of the country.”
Managing Director of NBC – Matthieu Seguin
In a bid to reach the milestone, the company has taken steps such as light weighting its beverage packaging to conserve materials and reduce footprint.
Also, they have invested in redesigning all its primary and secondary packaging materials to be 100% recyclable.
Recently the Coca-Cola Nigeria changed its iconic green Sprite Bottle to clear packaging, making it 100% recyclable and easier to reuse.
Other than in Nigeria, the new Sprite look has also been introduced in Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia.
“Thirdly, we are driving the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) initiative, in collaboration with other industry stakeholders under Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA).
“We will be scaling up this intervention, with the establishment of more recycling banks in other parts of the country. This is the first of seven recycling banks which NBC will be commissioning this year alone,” said Seguin.
The collaboration with Recycle Points is also aimed tp bridge the unemployment and gender inclusion gap in the country, as the initiative is set to create about 2,000 new jobs, majority of which would mostly be taken up by women and youth in the society.
Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, a new plastic waste recycling plant has been established in Bulawayo following a US$200, 000 investment by Chasdiel Investment.
The company has procured a state-of-the-art equipment and will be producing more than 32, 000 carrier bags per day from plastic waste.
The project has excited environmentalists who say it will assist the city manage plastic waste in a sustainable manner.
Chasdiel Investment is the parent company of Anytime Plastics that also produces peanut butter, among other consumer goods.
