Recline while you recycle

When the 111 Navy Chair was launched at the Milan Furniture Show in April 2010, one commentator praised it as a 'stylishly understated showstopper'. But what really made an impact was the material used: the 111 Navy Chair is made of 111 recycled Coca‑Cola bottles.

The chair is part of Coca‑Cola's efforts to highlight the importance of recycling and the idea of recycled material as a valuable resource. The Carbon Trust's report on our environmental impact found that packaging accounts for between 30 and 70 per cent of our carbon footprint. So using recycled plastic and encouraging Coca‑Cola drinkers to recycle their bottles and cans can help us to make a big difference.

The 111 Navy Chair

Designed by Emeco, bottles by Coca‑Cola
Both Coca‑Cola and furniture company Emeco are famous for design. In our case, the design of our famous contour bottle or our red and white logo have made Coca‑Cola one of the most recognised brands in the world. Emeco is famous for its award-winning Navy Chair range, first invented in 1944 for the US Navy.

Both companies are also committed to recycling and reducing waste. Designers at Emeco were given the task of creating a chair using recycled PET plastic from our bottles, with Coca‑Cola estimating that these chairs would reuse the PET from about three million plastic bottles a year. Despite having only worked with aluminium to date, the opportunity to make a difference with Coca‑Cola persuaded Emco to branch out into plastic.

"When Coca‑Cola approached me with this project, I jumped on it," says Gregg Buchbinder, chairman of Emeco. "I was excited about the impact of reusing the PET from about three million plastic bottles a year. That's a lot of bottles and a lot of chairs. We've turned something many people throw away into something you can keep for a long, long time."

"The 111 Navy Chair is a reflection of our commitment to sustainability, constant innovation and originality in design," said Kate Dwyer, group director of worldwide licensing at The Coca‑Cola Company. "It is another step in our vision to recover and reuse all of our bottles and cans."

Commitment to sustainability

Creating desirable products from recycled materials is just one of the ways we're reducing the impact of our packaging and maximising our use of renewable, reusable and recyclable resources.