Coke opening world’s largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling facility

ATLANTA The Coca-Cola Company, as well as the many other beverage manufacturers that use plastic packaging, faced significant criticism last year from environmental organizations that accused them of carelessly adding to the world’s limited landfill space. Beginning Jan. 14, Coca-Cola is responding to such criticism with the opening of the world’s largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C.

Jointly owned by Coca-Cola and United Resource Recovery Corp., a Spartanburg-based PET plastic recycling company, the 30-acre plant is expected to produce approximately 100 million lbs of food-grade recycled PET plastic, or about 2 billion 20-oz Coke bottles.

This effort is meant to aid the company in completing their goal of recycling or reusing 100% of its bottles and cans in the United States.