Beverage manufacturer Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia (CCAI) plans to develop a plastic bottle recycling facility in Indonesia, one of the top plastic polluters in the world
everage manufacturer Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia (CCAI) plans to develop a plastic bottle recycling facility in Indonesia, one of the top plastic polluters in the world.
The company said in a statement on Friday that it had signed a deal with plastic packaging maker Dynapack Asia to conduct a feasibility study on developing the facility. CCAI also said it aimed to cut consumption of new plastic resin by a maximum 25,000 tons a year by 2022 and use recycled plastic instead.
The statement did not mention CCAI’s annual consumption of new plastic resin, but a 2019 report shows that the Coca-Cola Company produced 3 million tons of plastic packaging in 2017 to top the 31 companies listed in the report.
“It is a significant step toward [Coca-Cola] Amatil becoming self-sustaining in the plastic materials we use, ensuring a closed-loop for plastic beverage packaging in Indonesia as a whole,” said Amatil president director Kadir Gunduz in a statement.
Dynapack Asia president director Tirtadjaja Hambali said the packaging manufacturer was committed to using at least 25 percent recycled plastic in its production starting in 2025 as part of its commitment to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Indonesia aims to slash its plastic waste output by 70 percent by 2025, as per the country’s contribution to the global National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP). The Southeast Asian country is the world’s second-largest marine plastic polluter behind China, according to a 2015 study.
Earlier in December 2019, CCAI signed a partnership agreement with KFC Indonesia as the fast food chain’s soft drinks supplier after Pepsi left the country, giving Coca-Cola a bright future despite declining sales of carbonated drinks.
“Coca-Cola Amatil Indonesia will serve Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite soft drinks in more than 700 KFC restaurants across Indonesia,” CCAI president director Kadir Gunduz told reporters at the time, after signing the agreement with KFC Indonesia finance director Justinus D. Juwono in Jakarta.
Gunduz said the agreement would hopefully increase sales of Coca-Cola, as the soft drink’s association with fast food was very important.
CCAI also supplies several other fast food chains in Indonesia, including McDonald’s, Burger King, A&W, Pepper Lunch and Domino’s Pizza.
The December deal came after PepsiCo Inc., KFC’s long-time soft drinks partner, announced on Oct. 10 that it would terminate its partnership with Anugerah Indofood Beverage Makmur (AIBM) on the sales of all of its products in the country.
“AIBM and PepsiCo agreed not to extend the exclusive bottling agreement for commercial reasons,” spokesperson Gideon A. Putro of Indofood CPB, AIBM’s parent company, said in a statement published on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) website.
KFC Indonesia CEO Shivashish Pandey said that the fast food chain needed to find another soft drinks partner after PepsiCo’s departure.
“In our history, KFC and PepsiCo had [been partners] since before KFC came to Indonesia, so we used [Pepsi] here,” he said.
Indonesian Food and Beverage Association chairman Adhi S. Lukman said on Nov. 10 that sales of carbonated drinks had continued to decline annually from 1 percent to 2 percent over the past five to six years.
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