Looking at more efficienct ways to
recycle PET bottles within the EU is among Coca Cola’s
concerns - Making small
improvements to a company’s environmental performance is no longer
enough, according to Coca Cola’s European environmental
chief.



Speaking at waste industry trade show Futuresource this week, Coca
Cola’s European recycling director Patrick McGuirk said stand alone
initiatives that each did their bit for the environment would not
cut it any more and responsible corporations needed to look beyond
the four walls of their own factories, warehouses or retail
outlets.



“Six months ago I probably would have talked about incremental
change,” he said “[But} if we keep looking at incremental change we
miss the point.”

He said he had attended an event similar to Futuresource and
listened to presentations from major corporate players known for
their efforts in the field of CSR but had come to the conclusion
that these trials and schemes did not make ‘one iota of difference’
to the big picture.



He said it should be taken as a given that responsible companies
should have their own houses in order - their manufacturing plants
and outlets should be eco-efficient using the minimum
resources and ensuring that in-house recycling was as high as
possible.



But what consumers increasingly want to know is what happens in the
supply chain and to products after they’ve been sold, he
said.



“What Coca Cola is about now is not
what happens within these four walls, that’s yesterday’s news in
terms of sustainability,” he said.

“It’s about what happens to that packaging once it leaves
the shelves, about the impact of the sugar beat being grown across
Europe to supply sugar for our drinks.”



He said the single largest sustainability issue he had to consider
was what happened to plastic Coke bottles once drinks have been
consumed.



Attention needs to turn from ‘recycling on the go’ street
facilities and back to how we deal with waste at home - where most
of it ends up. The British consumer, he said, was the most
eco-aware - and demanding - in Europe but we lag behind many of our
neighbours in terms of action.



This is, in part, due to the complexities and idiosyncrasies of our
waste management system.



Mr McGuirk argued that the current system under which every local
authority deals with waste according to its own strategy was a
madness that had to stop, and called for a uniform system where
everyone knew where they were.



“Right now, at-home collection
is fundamentally broken; to have 438 local authorities with 438
systems is barmy, it just doesn’t work,” said Mr
McGuirk. He pointed to Belgium as a country
that had got this right, where more of the onus for sorting waste
was put on the public at home making for a more efficient system
that had resulted in impressively high recycling rates. Coca Cola
has a role to play in persuading the public to embrace effective
waste management, he said, and was not going to be shy about
stepping up to this challenge.



“You can influence consumers, and my belief is that we’re
actually quite good at that at Coca Cola,” he said.



“We should be influencing them to deal with their waste
better.”