Coca-Cola won’t stop using plastic bottles because ‘customers want them’

The company's head of sustainability said consumers like the bottles as they reseal and are lightweight.

Coca-Cola will not ditch single-use plastic bottles because ‘customers still want them’, the company’s head of sustainability Bea Perez has said.

The firm – which is one of the world’s biggest plastic waste polluters – believes if it stopped using plastic outright, it would have an adverse effect on sales.

Consumers like the bottles as they reseal and are lightweight, Ms Perez added.

She told the BBC: ‘Business won’t be in business if we don’t accommodate consumers.

‘So as we change our bottling infrastructure, move into recycling and innovate, we also have to show the consumer what the opportunities are. They will change with us.’

In 2019, it was revealed Coca-Cola produces three million tonnes of plastic packaging a year – equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute.

The same year, the drinks company was found to be the most polluting brand in a global audit of plastic waste by the charity Break Free from Plastic.

Speaking at the World Ecomomic Forum in Davos, Ms Perez said Coca-Cola acknowledged it had to be ‘part of the solution’.

She added that using only aluminium and glass packaging could push up the firm’s carbon footprint.

The company has promised to recycle as many plastic bottles as it uses by 2030 – despite arguments from campaigners that many would end up in landfill.

It has also partnered with NGOs around the world to help improve collection.

Ms Perez reportedly said she agreed environmental goals should be reached earlier, but would not say if she would resign if this was not achieved.

Last year both Coca-Cola and Pepsi told Packaging News packaging was ‘not the problem’.

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Tim Brett, president of Coca-Cola Western Europe, said: ‘I really believe strongly we don’t have a packaging problem. We have a waste problem and a litter problem.

‘There is nothing wrong with packaging, as long as we get that packaging back, we recycle it and then we reuse it again.

‘Packaging per se is not the problem. It’s the packaging that ends up in landfill or in litter.

‘That sounds jarring when you first hear it and I am not denying there is a packaging waste problem – but it is not necessarily the material.’