Coca-Cola to switch can multipacks from plastic to cardboard packaging

Coca-Cola will stop wrapping more than 30 million multipacks of its products in plastic each year, in a major move to cut its use of the material.

Coca-Cola European Partners announced this week that multipacks of cans sold in Great Britain will see plastic replaced with new cardboard packaging.

The new multipacks will be introduced over the next 18 months on four, six and eight-packs of cans across all of the soft drinks giant’s brands, including Coca-Cola (Original Taste and Zero Sugar), Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Dr Pepper and Lilt.

CCEP already wraps multipacks of 10 cans or more in cardboard.

Whilst the plastic shrink-wrap currently used for its other packs was recyclable, a postcode lottery of recycling facilities meant huge quantities of the material ended up in landfill, the company said.

It also pointed to Recoup 2018 figures showing only 10% of local authorities collected the material, in stark contrast to the 98% (Wrap 2016) that accepted cardboard as part of household recycling.

The cardboard used will be sustainably sourced, it said, with either a PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) or an FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification.

The move was part of a wider initiative being introduced across Western Europe, which would remove 4,000 tonnes of plastic from circulation across the region, CCEP added.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for consumers to recycle our packaging after they’ve enjoyed our drinks,” said VP and general manager of Coca-Cola European Partners GB Leendert den Hollander.

“All our cans are 100% recyclable, but we know it is a challenge for consumers to recycle the plastic we use for our multipacks. By replacing shrink-wrap with cardboard, which is collected by virtually every household system in the country, we are eliminating a hard-to-recycle material from our supply chain. Changing all our canning lines over the next 18 months is a complex project. But we believe it is the right thing to do and we would encourage others in the sector to follow our lead.