Coca-Cola has announced new collection and recycling plans for PET plastic in Southern, East and Central Africa for the next three years.

The company, in partnership with its bottling and industry partners in the region, will invest around US$38m to boost recycling industries and educate consumers about recycling.

The General Manager of Coca-Cola East and Central Africa Franchise, Ahmed Rady, made this known in a statement on Monday. He said that the fund would help create awareness on plastic waste pollution in the same areas over the same period of time.

The Coca-Cola Company is accelerating the collection and recycling of PET plastic bottles across Southern and East Africa to commemorate Global Recycling Day being marked on Monday.

“This is part of a focused World Without Waste campaign over three years and beyond.

“We have formulated strategies to ensure that our post-consumer plastic bottles do not pollute the environment as wastes.

“We are creating value from our bottles in a bid to drive and sustain a green economy,” Rady said.

Rady revealed that along with its bottling partners, Coca-Cola, in 2018 formed PET Recycling Company Limited (PETCO Kenya) to drive initiatives to collect and recycle PET bottles and packaging as well to create a favourable environment for the investment of additional capital in the PET sector in both production and recycling.

The campaign will include expanding the group’s PET Recycling Co (PETCO) initiative beyond South Africa and Kenya, with a target of recycling 20,000 tonnes of PET bottles in 2019 as well as taking the model to Ethiopia and Uganda. Coca-Cola will also launch a new bottle under the Bonaqua brand, using 100% recycled PET.

Further initiatives include using brands and packaging to educate consumers, as well as supporting community collection activities.

“We have shifted our business priorities to ensure value is added to our post-consumer plastic bottles so that they don’t end up as waste,” said Bruno Pietracci, president of Coca-Cola Southern & East Africa.

“I like to think of it as creating a new currency with plastic – developing our bottles into valuable resources that can drive a green economy.”