The whole package

Coca‑Cola is one of Great Britain's biggest users of packaging materials. Packaging is a crucial element of our business, as it helps keep our drinks fresh, hygienic and portable, but we're constantly seeking improvements in this area to lower our impact on the environment.

At Coca‑Cola our packaging vision is zero waste. As we take steps towards this vision, we've made a commitment to:

Reduce
Every year we produce around 67 million of our iconic glass bottles in Great Britain. You may not even have noticed the tiny changes to the shape and size of the bottle, but we've made it 20 per cent lighter, slightly shorter and more impact-resistant since 2007. This new 'ultra' bottle design weighs only 210g (down from 263g), meaning our use of glass has been cut by 3,500 tonnes a year.

Our plastic bottles have changed too, today weighing 24g compared with 39g in 1994. We've also evolved our aluminium cans - the can 'wall' has been reduced to the thickness of a human hair, making it five per cent lighter than previous designs. Our design has been adopted across the drinks industry and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has estimated that the new can design will save 15,000 tonnes of aluminium across the EU each year.

Recycle
Currently nearly 97 per cent of our waste is recycled, with only three per cent going to landfill. Our Wakefield site has already achieved zero waste, with other sites on track to achieve this in 2010 and 2011.

We're also encouraging Coca‑Cola consumers to recycle cans and bottles after enjoying our drinks. To this end, we've set up Recycle Zones around the country to enable you to make a difference, too.

Reuse
We look at packaging materials as a resource to reuse. Our glass bottles currently contain about 37 per cent recycled glass, while half of the aluminium in our cans is recycled. Using the metal in this way saves 95 per cent of the energy needed to manufacture it from its raw form.

We're now looking at how we can increase the use of recycled material in our plastic bottle. We're already on our way to achieving our target of 25 per cent recycled plastic in all bottles across Europe by 2012.