“Round in Circles”: Coca-Cola launches new campaign to boost bottle-recycling

25 Sep 2019 --- In light of Recycle Week – happening now – Coca-Cola Great Britain has launched a new advertising campaign, coined “Round in Circles” to remind people that its bottles are 100 percent recyclable. The move is part of the company’s sustainable packaging strategy and will also be supported by turning the Coca-Cola London Eye green on Wednesday. The campaign includes print and outdoor advertising, with a focus on transport hubs, and aims to encourage more consumers to recycle, which is essential in creating a circular economy for plastic bottles and packaging in general.

“With this campaign, we want to raise awareness that all of our bottles can be recycled and turned into new ones. Aside from taking action to make our packaging as sustainable as possible, it’s important that we use our marketing and communications to encourage more people to recycle our bottles after they have enjoyed the drink,” says Kris Robbens, Marketing Director, Coca-Cola Great Britain.

“Consumers are more likely to recycle if they know the bottles can be turned into new bottles again. Across all of our brands we want to use more recycled material in all of our packaging, however, that requires more of it to be collected so that it can be reused to make new bottles,” he adds.

Earlier this year, an Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative report found that Coca-Cola produces three million tons of plastic packaging a year – based on 2017 numbers – which translates to 200,000 bottles a minute. These figures, including annual packaging volume numbers supplied voluntarily by 36 other companies, have been shared in an effort to bring transparency to the plastic packaging industry.

Consumers are more likely to recycle if they know the bottles can be turned into new bottles again.However, last week, Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) announced it is removing plastic shrink-wrap across all multipack cans sold in the UK and transition to cardboard over the next 18 months. This marks the latest move in CCEP’s wider sustainability initiative, which will see 4,000 tons of plastic removed from circulation across Western Europe.

The creative for the new advertising campaign, which features a number of different Coca-Cola brands, interweaves information into circular artwork, referencing the company’s commitment to helping develop a true circular economy for its packs. The creative for the campaign was developed by Recipe, a creative agency based in London.

“The new campaign from Coca-Cola, launched today reaffirms Coca-cola’s ongoing commitment as one of our founding UK Plastics Pact members. Recycle Week 2019 is focused on taking action and this certainly goes to prove that brands like Coca-Cola are committed to making a difference to our environment. While finding the most sustainable packaging solutions is a critical part of a circular model, recycling infrastructure and behavior also need to be considered a priority,” notes Craig Stephens, Recycle Now Campaign Manager.

Strategically sustainable
Coca-Cola’s ongoing sustainable packaging strategy was first announced in 2017, guided by its ambition to ensure all packaging is recovered so that more is recycled and none ends up as waste. 

The new campaign is the latest in a series of sustainability efforts such as:

• More than 30 million packs sold to consumers each year will no longer be wrapped in plastic contributing to 4,000 tonnes saving of plastic across Western Europe.
• Coca-Cola is changing the iconic green Sprite bottle from green to clear to make it even easier to recycle into a new bottle.
• GLACÉAU Smartwater will be the company’s first brand to move to 100 percent recycled plastic in its bottles over the next few months.
• Continuing to increase the amount of recycled PET used in all its plastic bottles to at least 50 percent. The new packs will be launched next year and will make Coca-Cola the biggest user of recycled PET plastic in the UK.

Coca-Cola also continues to champion reform of the existing recovery and recycling systems in the UK and supports the introduction of a well-designed deposit return scheme to help retrieve more packaging.

Edited by Kristiana Lalou