In a bid to increase the number of bottles collected for recycling in Fiji, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Fiji’s (CCEPF) has purchased a granulator that will process bottles into plastic flake.
The first of its kind in the Pacific, CCEPF general manager Roger Hare said the machine would be stationed at the CCEPF factory site in Suva from where the Bottle Buyback Scheme Mission Pacific operated.
He said presently, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles had been turned into bales before being shipped in containers offshore.
CCEPF has been operating the Mission Pacific PET bottle and can collection scheme in partnership with Fiji Water and Motibhai since 1999, where collectors are paid a collection refund for returned bottles and cans in three locations across Fiji.
“Being able to turn PET plastic bottles into flakes significantly reduces the cost of shipping the material offshore as the flake takes up a lot less room in a container than bales,” Mr Hare said.
“We’re also hoping it will allow us to eventually sell into markets we haven’t been able to before because of issues associated with baled bottles.”
He said the first initiative had been to pilot working with CCEPF’s sister company, Paradise Beverages, on the home collection of PET bottles together with glass beer bottles.
“We know increasing collection is driven by three things — convenience, accessibility, and incentive.
“We’ve looked at ways to make it easier and more attractive for Fijians to recycle to really try to drive up the number of bottles collected.
“Given contractors were already driving trucks around Suva to collect returnable glass beer bottles for Paradise Beverages, we thought this was a great opportunity to trial collecting PET bottles at the same time.
“A number of contractors have worked with us to extend their collection services to PET bottles with consumers being paid an incentive when they bring their PET bottles to the trucks at the same time as the glass bottles.”
Mr Hare said another new initiative in the pipeline was the increase in the number of collection points for people to bring their bottle back, using mobile caravans.
“The Mission Pacific collection caravans are operating at a number of festivals and events around Suva, for example the Public Rental Board Market carnivals and Fiji Sports Council events.
“The public are paid five cents ($0.05) for every bottle they return.
“We’ve been advertising on social media, in newspapers and distributing flyers ahead of the event to let people know we will be there and to bring their PET bottles in for collection.
“We’d really like to grow this by expanding this network to cover more of the big resorts as well as increasing the number of collection depots.”
Mr Hare said that last year alone, Mission Pacific collected and shipped 140 tonnes of PET offshore for recycling.
