“Coke has spurred a revolution in the economics of plastics recycling,” Peter Anderson of PRP said in making the award. He lauded the company for “following on your decade of technology development with a public commitment” to the use of recycled PET in soft drink bottles. This commitment was made in 2000.
“Our system has worked extremely hard over the past decade,” said Coca-Cola’s environmental manager Scott Vitters, investing “more than $15 million to develop sustainable recycling technologies for food contact applications.” Later, Vitters announced that this year Coke “has reached its 10 percent [recycled]-content commitment in 80 percent of its bottles” and is ahead of schedule in meeting its goal of all bottles by 2005.
The PRP is a coalition of local and state recycling officials working to improve the economics of plastics recycling. —AO
