By Plasteurope.com staff

Dutch beverage group Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) said it will in future use beverage crates made from 97% recycled HDPE. Around 150,000 of these iconic red boxes are to be introduced in the Netherlands this year, with the aim of gradually replacing the country’s entire fleet of boxes.

Transport packaging manufacturer Schoeller Allibert (Hoofddorp, Netherlands; www.schoellerallibert.com) is cooperating with Healix (Maastricht, Netherlands; www.healix.eco) in the production of the crates. The Maastricht-based reclaim company specialises in the recycling of fibrous plastics waste – including fishing nets and so-called harvesting plastics.

Of the recycled materials used to produce the crates, 85% come from old red beverage crates and 15% from agriculture, for example nets that are buried in the ground to make it easier to bring tulip bulbs back to the surface for “harvesting”.

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“These crates have an average lifespan of 15 years”, said Eva Amsterdam, Sustainability Manager at CCEP. “However, if they break, they are now used as feedstock material for new crates.”

The crates are then used for returnable glass bottles, which are filled at the Dongen site in the Netherlands. This applies to all the company’s brands in returnable glass bottles, including Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, and Fuze Tea.

Compared with those made from fossil-based plastics, the new crates purportedly reduce carbon emissions by 64%.

— Translated by Christopher Köbel