Page 24 - Food & Drink March 2020

ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS
All in the bottle
LEFT: Coca-Cola Amatil is getting creatures big and small onside with its recycling commitments.
BELOW: Amatil Australia MD Peter West.
preforms at Eastern Creek in Sydney. The resin must be dried to a low moisture content before it’s reshaped,” West says.
“All our preform machines have dryers to dry the resin but we identified that drying time varied enormously across machines – from as low as a few hours to over 20 hours. Using sub-metering meant we could pinpoint specific drying times and make sure the team calibrated machines to meet the need.”
PLASTIC PARTNERSHIP
Amatil and Veolia ANZ have also announced a joint project team to consider the feasibility, size, scale, location, end-to-end requirements and integration into both company’s value chains of a rPET recycling plant.
Veolia ANZ CEO and MD Danny Conlon says he was delighted to be working with Amatil. “It comes at a critical time for Australia where we need to be doing more to resolve ongoing issues around plastics and their potential to be recycled,” he said.
For Amatil, its 2020 commitments include improving water intensity for non-alcoholic beverages to no more than 1.95 litres per litre made.
Its goal is a 25 per cent improvement in water efficiency for alcoholic beverages (compared to 2013) and food
(compared to 2010).
Amatil says it will reduce the
carbon footprint of the “drink in your hand” by 25 per cent compared to 2010 and
screen 80 per cent of supply spend using
responsible sourcing criteria.
Watkins says: “We think every beverage
container should be recycled and live
again, not become waste in our marine and land environment.” ✷
Coca-Cola Amatil’s commitment to recycling and sustainability in the beverage market is well established with some major runs on the board and more underway. Kim Berry writes.
ENERGY SAVINGS
On other sustainability fronts, Amatil said it was on track for 60 per cent of its energy needs coming from renewable and low carbon sources, including wind, solar and natural gas.
This year, 5200 solar panels will be installed at its Eastern Creek bottling plant.
“We’re rolling out more renewable energy at our facilities, with new solar panels this year at Amatil facilities in Eastern Creek, Richlands and Kewdale in Australia, and Cibitung in Indonesia,” says Watkins.
The company cut its annual plastics use by 50 tonnes by electricity sub-metering in bottle production. It also cut annual carbon emissions by 67 tonnes and reduced the company’s power bill
by $14,000.
Amatil’s Australia
MD Peter West said the company worked with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage to
install
electricity
sub-meters on
its resin-drying subsystems at
Eastern Creek.
“We’re a
major user of plastic resin in bottling, mostly involving recycled plastic. We shape this resin into bottle
THROUGHOUT 2019, Amatil achieved 10 major environmental goals, starting with abandoning single use plastic straws and stirrers and ending with a heads of agreement to investigate a plastics pelletising plant.
Group MD Alison Watkins says Amatil is responding to consumer demands to reduce unnecessary packaging. The company intended to have 100 per cent of its Australian packaging fully recyclable by 2025, including all bottles, cans, plastic wrap, straws, glass and cardboard, she says.
“We are working towards phasing out unnecessary and problematic single-use plastics entirely, through improved design, innovation or the use of recycled alternatives.”
Amatil is also a signatory to the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation 2025 National Packaging Targets.
SAVING VIRGIN PLASTICS
From this year, Amatil will use 16,000 tonnes less virgin plastic in Australia, as it doubles its use of recycled plastic bottles in the Australian market.
It announced last year that 70 per cent of plastic bottles for soft
drinks, water and juice in 600 millilitre bottles and under would be made from 100 per cent recycled plastic.
Watkins said the company’s goal was to achieve packaging neutrality – recovering the equivalent of one bottle or can for every one sold – by 2030.
SUCCESS UNDER PRESSURE
Amatil’s biggest breakthrough was producing Australia’s first carbonated soft drink bottle completely from recycled materials.
Watkins says: “Pressure inside a soft drink bottle is up to 100 psi, or three times the pressure in a car tyre. So the bottle for carbonated drinks needs to be much stronger than for still beverages, and that’s been an obstacle in using 100 per cent recycled materials for these types of drinks.
“I’m pleased to say we’ve overcome this challenge through innovation and design, and we’re now the first in Australia to make 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles for carbonated beverages. That’s great news for the sustainability of our products, and a credit to Australian innovation.”
24 | Food&Drink business | March 2020 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au