In France, Coca-Cola goes green. Last October 2013 he had already inaugurated a co-enterprise founded with Appe, European leader of Pet. Finally, this is the name of the laboratory located in Burgundy in Sainte-Marie-la-Blanche, which recovers used Coca-Cola plastic bottles, collected in collaboration with the Municipalities, to make them into granules of recycled plastic. 8.700.000 euros were invested in Infineo, which made it possible to increase its production capacity by 70%. In parallel, an educational center was also created which has set itself the goal of welcoming 5.000 young people every year to raise awareness of the importance of recycling.
Six months later, the US company has gone one step further in its French sustainable development strategy. Indeed, on Tuesday 17 June it officially opened its first 'atelier des préformes français', located in Grigny, one of the five industrial sites of Coca-Cola Enterprises (Cce) in the country. Born from the transformation of the granules produced by Infineo and combined with recycled resin, the 'préformes', a sort of small tube, are then 'blown' to become bottles. The first were created last December and the atelier's capacity will allow it to produce up to 1,5 million a day.
Starting from this initiative, Coca-Cola establishes a circular economy that starts from the recycling of its bottles to make new ones which will then be reinserted into the production cycle. “Currently in France only one out of two bottles is recycled” – points out Arnaud Rolland, responsible for sustainable development of the CEC. “Our mission is to encourage consumers to put away plastic bottles because more bottles need to be collected to run the cycle.”
The company has pledged to cut its carbon emissions by a third by 2020.
