Acting on an external alert by the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) against bottling companies advertising environmental claims on plastic bottles, beverage major The Coca-Cola Company has promised to revisit ‘100% recycled’ and ‘100% recyclable’ claims on its plastic bottles, BEUC posted on its website.
In a 6 May update, seen by Packaging South Asia, Coca-Cola has committed to replace claims on bottles’ labels such as “I am a bottle made from 100% recycled plastic” with clearer statements such as “This bottle, excluding label and cap, is made from 100% recycled plastic.” The separate disclaimer will have different fonts, BEUC said.
The company will also replace claims on the bottles’ labels, such as “Recycle me again” with “Recycle me,” to encourage the disposal of empty bottles in a manner, which makes it clearer to consumers that that there is not a closed loop in the recycling process, the European Commission said.
It will ensure that the overall impression of the label and the marketing is not misleading consumers regarding the environmental benefits of the packaging, for instance, by combining them with other green claims or symbols. Coca-Cola will also ensure that digital marketing campaigns on Coca-Cola’s websites and social media channels reflect the content of these commitments, the commission said.
In its update, Coca-Cola also stated, “TCCC confirms that PET bottles labelled as ‘made from 100% recycled plastic’ do not contain material derived from virgin PET or virgin PET scraps / off-cuts (by-products from bottle production) that have been reused without being subject to a recycling process governed by Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1616.”
“The commitments we’ve voluntarily aligned with the European Commission (EC) Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) underline our shared ambition of providing clear and factual information about our products to consumers,” Packaging Insights has quoted a Coca-Cola spokesperson as saying.
According to the commission, following its alert, the Coca-Cola Company contacted the European Commission and voluntarily engaged in a dialogue with the CPC-network under the lead of the Swedish Consumer Agency and the Hungarian Competition Authority. As next steps, national consumer protection authorities will monitor the implementation of these commitments.
“It is good news that Coca-Cola has heeded consumers’ call and commits to clarify that its ‘100%’ recycling claims only apply to parts of the bottle,” European media quoted BEUC director general Agustín Reyna as saying in a 6 May release.
The row dates to November 2023, when BEUC and its members complained to the European Commission and its Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC), stating that Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Danone were infringing consumer protection law by using statements like ‘100% recycled’ and ‘100% recyclable’ on their plastic beverage bottles, Packaging Europe said.
In a separate investigation, the United Nations has expressed concerns after Coca-Cola Europacific Partners chose to replace reusable glass bottles with single-use plastic alternatives in the small island developing state of Samoa. Due to a lack of local recycling infrastructure, the island is feared to have experienced an ‘immediate increase’ in plastic litter and pollution, thus driving up management costs and export-related emissions, Packaging Europe reported.
