Page 309 - Design for Environment A Guide to Sustainable Product Development

Food and Beverage Industries 285

• Designing packages that use less material without sacrificing
quality
• Investing in technologies and recovery systems that enable
greater use of recycled materials
To help improve packaging performance, Coke initiated an effort
in 2006 to build a global online inventory of primary, secondary, and
transport package systems by sales and weight. This extensive data-
base, which also tracks system recycling rates, will enable the system
to measure business performance more effectively and assess prog-
ress toward longer-term goals. In the first year of reporting, nearly
90% of the Coca-Cola system’s global packaging data were captured,
accounting for 98% of global sales volume.
Coke continues to make strides in package design efforts focused
on improving efficiency, life-cycle effectiveness and eco-innovation.
For example, using state-of-the-art computer design software, the
company effectively reduced the weight and improved the impact
resistance of the widely recognizable glass contour bottle (see Figure
15.2). The innovative “Ultra Glass” bottles, introduced in 2000, are
40% stronger, 20% lighter and 10% less expensive than traditional con-
tour bottles. These redesigned bottles saved 89,000 metric tons of glass
in 2006, the CO equivalent of planting more than 13,000 acres of trees.
2
Coca-Cola has been focused on PET recycling and reuse since
introducing the first beverage bottle made with recycled material in
1991. The company has made considerable investments in closed-loop
recycling plants around the world. For example, Coke is investing
more than $60 million to build the world’s largest plastic-bottle-
to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C. The plant will pro-
duce approximately 100 million pounds of food-grade recycled
PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic for reuse each year—the
equivalent of producing nearly two billion 20-ounce Coca-Cola

FIGURE 15.2 Mass reduction achieved
by the Ultra Glass bottle.