Bottle to bottle

On a hot day, or perhaps after exercise, there are few things more refreshing than a cold drink – especially when it's from a bottle of your favourite beverage brand. But these brands face a perennial, world-wide issue of how to deal with the waste created by plastic bottles. In Hong Kong, Swire Coca-Cola HK has devoted time and investment into finding a sustainable solution to this problem: developing a "circular economy" for plastic bottles in the city.

Pat Healy, Chair of Swire Coca-Cola, explains the impetus for the decision: "Recycling rates for plastic bottles in Hong Kong have historically been very low versus other comparable cities, with the vast majority going straight to landfill. Consumer attitudes to plastic waste are shifting rapidly around the world and so we decided a few years ago to get ahead of the issue here in Hong Kong. We wanted to seize the initiative and create our own ‘bottle-to-bottle’ solution for the city."

After speaking with key stakeholders, such as retailers, NGOs and recyclers, Swire Coca-Cola was the driving force behind the establishment of Drink Without Waste. This cross-industry initiative was set up in 2017 to boost the collection of plastic bottles across the city, and is still active today. Then, in 2019, Swire Coca-Cola decided to invest alongside two joint venture partners in its own recycling plant. Doing so ensured the company was part of the solution that addresses the waste problem caused by single-use plastics. And that's where New Life Plastics comes in.

'Closing the loop'

PET hot wash line — The hot wash line at New Life Plastics’ facility.

Travel west along the coast beyond the town of Tuen Mun and you come to EcoPark, home to the New Life Plastics recycling plant. The facility is a joint venture between Swire Coca-Cola HK, a waste collection company and recycling company, and became fully operational in 2022.

New Life Plastics manufactures recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) flakes, which are used by Swire Coca-Cola HK for a range of its bottles. The facility deploys infrared and optical sensors for advanced sorting of the collected bottles, and is the only facility in the city to use a hot wash process. Doing so enables it to produce high-grade recycled plastic flakes suitable for plastic beverage bottles. New Life Plastics uses recycling equipment from leading international providers to ensure optimum quality and safety.

Flakes are processed in an air stream separator.

Different grades of rPET flakes.

The plant processes around 500 tonnes of plastic bottles each month, the equivalent of around 20 million bottles, which are collected in a variety of ways. These include reverse vending machines, where residents can deposit used plastic bottles and receive a small cash rebate. There is also the Hong Kong SAR Government's GREEN@COMMUNITY network within the city, which accepts bottles and is an important source of feedstock. Sorting bins placed in public locations around Hong Kong are also available for residents to deposit used bottles. Then, there are community collection schemes, such as the Blue Bag Scheme in Tin Shui Wai, a residential area of the city which is in close proximity to the New Life Plastics recycling plant. Swire Coca-Cola HK began supporting the Blue Bag Scheme in October 2022 as part of the Drink Without Waste alliance. Since the scheme was launched, more than 300 tonnes of plastic have been collected.

Alfred Weston, who is the General Manager of New Life Plastics, says Swire Coca-Cola HK's involvement as the major shareholder gives long-term security to the plant's operations. "Swire Coca-Cola HK is a major producer of plastic bottles but is also leading the way with its use of rPET. Plastic bottles are now being collected in Hong Kong, processed at our facility and then turned back into recycled bottles, closing the loop on the lifecycle of plastic bottles in the city. We are a vital part of that journey," he explains.

Swire Coca-Cola HK uses a high proportion of rPET to meet its overall PET requirement; last year this was over 50%. By working closely with New Life Plastics, the company has been able to create a closed loop within Hong Kong to create a local "bottle-to-bottle" concept. All of Swire Coca-Cola HK's recycled plastic is now collected in the city and processed at New Life Plastics. "Being able to tell this whole story gives people confidence in recycling in Hong Kong, which drives even more recycling. It is a pioneering case of the circular economy for single-use plastic in action in Hong Kong," says Alfred.

Packaging innovations

Over on the other side of Hong Kong, at Swire Coca-Cola HK's bottling plant in Sha Tin, is where the rPET flakes take on a form that consumers will instantly recognise – bottles of Coca-Cola® and other beverages. Yet, to most people, a plastic bottle just looks like a plastic bottle. However, a great deal of ingenuity has gone on behind the scenes in an effort to cut waste and reuse recycled material in the production process.

The change to using rPET began in 2019 when the material began to constitute 25% of specific bottle sizes in an effort to substitute virgin plastic during production. Fast-forward to today and all 500ml plastic bottles of Coca-Cola® Original, Coca-Cola® No Sugar and Coca-Cola® Plus are made from 100% rPET. And it isn't just the fizzy drinks that are taking on a new mantle. Mineralized water brand bonaqua® has been using 100% rPET for its 500ml and 1.5L water bottles since 2020. All of this demand for rPET is now met by New Life Plastics.

Other innovations are in place: bonaqua® Mineralized Water Label-less bottles, for example, feature etching on the bottle's surface rather than using single-use plastic labelling. And minor changes to Coca-Cola® plastic bottle necks and caps – which make them about 1.5g lighter – enable the company to save 52 tonnes of plastic each year. Indeed, Swire Coca-Cola HK was one of the pioneers in Asia to use a thinner bottle top. Crucially, these subtle changes mean that the bottles keep the fizz of their contents, remain sturdy and have absolutely no effect on the quality of the beverage inside each one.

Richard Gould, General Manager of Swire Coca-Cola HK, says, "The switch to using rPET for our preformed bottles has been a learning process. To maintain the same quality that we had with virgin plastic, we decided to add the rPET in stages beginning initially with just 25% rPET and mixing that with regular PET. This was to ensure we were able to preserve the same 'rigidity' in the finished bottles, which is what keeps in the fizz. As we increased the amount of rPET to 100%, we adjusted our equipment and processes accordingly. So, while the quality of our bottles is exactly the same as before, the overall process is more complex. But the payoff is that the bottle-to-bottle loop stays closed."

Ready for more recycling

Back at New Life Plastics, the facility is seeing improvements in collection and last year it received nearly 40% more plastic than in 2024. However, the PET bottle recycling rate of just over 20% is still low by international standards and the facility has the capacity to process more than two million bottles each day, which accounts for over half the daily consumption in Hong Kong. That position is expected to improve with the Producer Responsibility Scheme on Plastic Beverage Containers and Beverage Cartons expected to be ratified by the government in the future. This key piece of legislation will set progressively higher collection obligations on beverage manufacturers with the ultimate goal of reaching a recycling rate of 75%.

Increasing the rate of recycling also needs to be supported by other initiatives, one of which is educating the general public about the benefits of recycling more. New Life Plastics has been actively working with NGOs and conducting outreach sessions to schools to explain the importance of recycling to the next generation. The facility offers guided tours, welcoming over 2,000 visitors in last two years, and collaborates with the City University of Hong Kong to take postgraduate students from the School of Energy and Environment to see, first-hand, the lifecycle of beverage bottles in Hong Kong – from collection to sorting at New Life Plastics, all the way through to production at Swire Coca-Cola HK’s plant in Sha Tin.

A final word from Pat Healy: "New Life Plastics has the capacity to cope with a much greater amount of feedstock. We will continue to work alongside the Hong Kong SAR Government and other stakeholders to drive up plastic bottle recycling rates. This will be great for New Life Plastics, great for Swire Coca-Cola and even better news for Hong Kong's environment."

Did you know?

Swire Coca-Cola HK's bottles of Sprite® are no longer a distinctive green colour because coloured plastics are harder to recycle than clear plastics.

In 2022, Swire Coca-Cola HK launched an optimised returnable glass bottle (RGB) made with 60% recycled glass to boost recyclability – one-third lighter, 30% larger in volume (250ml) and transparent – aligning with its sustainability goals. Each bottle can be reused 15 to 20 times.

bonaqua® Mineralized Water, packaged in RGB form, was introduced to the hotel and business-to-business sectors in 2023.