October 23, 2007

Coca Cola: The Recycled Thing

Advertising Age reported on Friday that Coca Cola is set to roll out a huge new recycling initiative. The plan includes spending $60 million on a new recycling plant, donations to a nonprofit recycling program, and - taking a page from the “I Am Not a Plastic Bag” bag - developing a line of Coca Cola-branded recycled t-shirts made from old Coca Cola bottles:

Coke has also decided to use recycled material, known as recycled polyethylene terephthalate, or RPET, in other ways…the marketer is rolling out a line of RPET t-shirts with a recycling motif, like a glass bottle with an arrow swirling around it, with little branding other than a small, red Coca-Cola tab on the bottom of the right seam.

The line of t-shirts, designed by Coke and fabricated by Park City, Utah, Revolve Apparel Project, will launch in December at Fred Segal Melrose, an ultra-hip West Hollywood boutique.

The idea sounds great, and it’s definitely a step in the right direction for a company that hasn’t exactly been a saint in the past. But we still have two nagging questions: how much energy does it require to spin fabric out of plastic bottles (is the process really energy efficient?), and wouldn’t it be great if Coca Cola donated the shirts to people in developing countries, instead of selling them at a high-end boutique in Melrose?

AdAge: Coke to Roll Out Line of T-shirts Made From Bottles

3 Responses to “Coca Cola: The Recycled Thing”

Ed
Posted from: 71.139.163.86
October 24th, 2007 at 1:53 am

Coca-Cola’s ability to recover plastic bottles will be an important factor in the success of their efforts. Maybe they have a new strategy to increase the public’s participation rate in recycling. If not…
John Voelcker
Posted from: 71.190.74.99
October 24th, 2007 at 6:10 am

Will Coke lean on its bottlers to stop throwing such political weight at the state level against bottle-deposit bills?

Will Coke support raising the ludicrous nickel deposit to a dime, or even a quarter?

The change in U.S. behavior in those states (a minority) with bottle-deposit bills after their introduction is documented. Let people recoup a slight tax, and they’ll do it in spades. As the value of a nickel has fallen–over two decades!–redemption rates have gone down.

If Coke just buys recycled plastic for its shirts, without aggressively *incenting* its consumers to return and reycle the bottles … YAWN. Same ol’ same ol’.
EcoLinking - 26 October 2007 at EcoStreet - Raising Green Consciousness since 2002
Posted from: 64.40.115.71
October 26th, 2007 at 4:39 am

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