VIDEO: Closing the loop now ‘business critical’ says Coca Cola

Patrick McGuirk, recycling director for Coca Cola Enterprises (CCE), says that securing the supply of recycled materials in a local, sustainable manner to put back into remanufacture is now a pressing priority and a key CSR driver behind investing in its own reprocessing infrastructure.

“Recycled PET is one of our most important commodities – it’s increasingly critical that we have a local supply chain that’s going to work and support that packaging,” he said.

“As we look at other partnerships around recycling that is certainly one of the drivers – can we secure that material on a long-term sustainable basis for our business?”

He added that keeping the material in the UK through this closed loop process also makes financial sense as before CCE had to rely on imported stock.

McGuirk also talks about how the waste sector has undergone a “revolution” in the last decade, evolving from a logistics industry to one that is now essentially dealing with secondary commodities trading.

“[CCE] is a critical customer [for the waste sector] and we are just getting to know each other,” he added.

Sponsored by FCC Environment, the interview series comprises eight video interviews with stakeholders from all points in the circular economy. The fourth leader interview will follow next week, featuring the local authority perspective with Somerset Waste Partnership.

View previous interviews:

The SME Leader perspective – Commercial Group

The Manufacturer perspective – Unilever

The Waste Contractor perspective – FCC Environment

The Designer perspective – Sophie Thomas

The Local Authority perspective – Somerset Waste Partnership

The Retail perspective – John Lewis Partnership

The Thought Leader perspective – Peter Jones

The interviews incorporate learning from our recently-published White Paper ‘Closing the loop: risk or reward’. You can download your copy here.