Coca-Cola leaves the closure on the bottle goes for easy recyclability

Coca-Cola is implementing an EU requirement that plastic closures on disposable bottles must remain on the bottle after opening until July 3, 2024. The beverage company in Germany is already starting the gradual conversion to new closures for all non-returnable PET bottles.

Coca-Cola is taking the changeover as an opportunity to optimize the overall use of materials in the bottles. In Germany, the new closures should save up to 1.37 grams of plastic per bottle.

The changeover will take place gradually

The company is starting to switch to the new closures at an early stage in order to ensure that the EU requirements are implemented in Germany by July 2024. The starting point will be the bottling plant in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia, in November 2021, followed by the non-returnable PET lines in Mannheim, Mönchengladbach, Hildesheim, and Knetzgau in 2022. 

By January 2024, all German plants with single-use PET lines will gradually convert their production to bottles with the new closures. To ensure that everything runs smoothly, this is done in no more than five plants per year.

Due to the long-term conversion phase, both non-returnable PET bottles with the previous type of closure and with the new closures can be found on the market for a while. In order to make consumers aware of the new closures, the lids are labeled with the words “Let me go!”.

The previous opening mechanism does not change. In the future, however, the new closures will remain connected to the part of the safety ring on the bottleneck. The closure can be easily opened and closed and moved back and forth for convenient consumption. In addition, it can be fixed in one position to enable convenient pouring.

Return to the recycling cycle

The non-returnable PET bottles with the new closures can, as before, including their lids, be handed in via automatic empties throughout Germany. Thanks to the deposit system, valuable material can be collected and recycled. In Germany, over 90 percent of bottle caps are already collected in this way.

“As the largest beverage manufacturer in the world, Coca-Cola is aware of its responsibility and uses its levers for sustainable change. We took the EU regulation as an opportunity to optimize our closures as a whole and to develop a new, material-saving solution. We are continuously working on our packaging and are looking for new ways of saving material in line with our sustainability goals and making them even more environmentally friendly. ” Tilmann Rothammer, Managing Director Customer Service & Supply Chain, Coca-Cola European Partners Germany.

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