Coca-Cola Bets on 100% Recycled Bottles in Italy. Will It Offset Billions in Plastic Waste?
Inside the Piedmont region in Northern Italy, Gaglianico in the Province of Biella, a white-grey structure looms from the ground, boasting itself as one of the world’s finest and most cutting-edge facilities that churns out billions of soda bottles every year. The factory belongs to the brand that has won the hearts of America with its crisp, refreshing golden bubbles and signature cola flavor. In contrast to the stock of soda bottles that it produces, the company, unfortunately, also jettisons one of the largest loads of plastic junk on the planet. At first, the junk litters the landfills, then rises into the sky to poison the air molecules, eventually plopping down into oceans, throttling vital life. Coca-Cola, however, has stood up to the onus from time to time to reverse this negative.
In a report, OCEANA projected that the plastic dumped on the planet by Coca-Cola factories will exceed 9 billion pounds by 2030. On a positive note, the company has frequently rolled out changes in packaging so the products don’t end up damaging the environment. According to the latest press release, the aforementioned factory in Italy will produce bottles made entirely of recycled plastic, a revolutionary step by the company to make a significant contribution to curbing plastic pollution.
A short while ago, ESM reported that the plant was relaunched following a 30-million-euro investment in 2023. The company derived an innovative technology from Europe’s food industry to distinguish itself from the traditional bottling plants. In the coming years, this technology will pave the way to transforming the bottle production process behind the iconic soda beverages. The factory is powered by a hundred percent renewable energy sources, taken care of by dozens of employees.
When GeoPop’s team visited the factory, they reported that plastic here goes through a state-of-the-art blow-molding process that metamorphoses it into these bottles. In the first step, the virgin or recycled plastic is in the form of flakes. Tiny flakes are selected carefully and passed through machines for decontamination. Next comes the melting process. Flakes are passed through a potato-crusher-like machine that turns them into spaghetti-like strands. Condensation hardens these stands into tiny white balls, which are then passed through machines like printers and stampers before they are converted into full-fledged bottles.
This is not the first time the celebrated beverage brand has displayed its responsibility towards the environment. In May 2022, the company reported a change in the packaging applicable across a portfolio of brands, including Coca-Cola Original Taste, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and Lilt. The company announced that the new bottles in Great Britain would feature attached caps, an initiative that The Cool Down estimates helped prevent waste in the oceans and protect endangered animals.
With the latest initiative amid the Milan Winter Olympics, the brand has established its bastion in the hearts of billions of customers. "We have developed this technology, which is based on an 18-hour processing cycle," explains plant manager Stefano Lorenzon. The Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, the group that supports the Olympic Committee, has also developed a sustainable system through which electric or biofuel-powered vehicles will be used for product distribution. Meanwhile, the plant is estimated to transform up to 30,000 tons of plastic into 100 percent recycled bottles every year.
"All of the Group's production destined for the Italian market is distributed in 100% recycled plastic containers, including the Lurisia water line, for which we have accelerated the process of sustainable packaging transformation," Giangiacomo Pierini, Head of Institutional Relations and Head of Sustainability for Coca-Cola HBC Italia, explained in the press release.
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