Coca-Cola Hong Kong launches local plastic recycling with Swire Coca-Cola, turning used bottles into new ones and driving a circular economy
OdishaPlus Bureau
In a significant move to tackle beverage packaging waste, Coca-Cola in Hong Kong, in partnership with its bottling partner Swire Coca-Cola, has announced it is the first enterprise in the city to successfully recycle locally collected plastic bottles into new ones, leveraging its own advanced facilities.
The initiative marks a “tangible difference for a better Hong Kong, one bottle at a time,” according to Karlijn in t Veld, Vice President of Operations for Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Mongolia at The Coca-Cola Company.
The announcement, detailed in a recent Media Release, underscores a holistic, localized approach to creating a circular economy for plastic in the metropolis.
The effort is powered by Swire Coca-Cola’s significant investment in New Life Plastics Limited (NLP), which stands as Hong Kong’s first food-grade-ready plastic bottle recycling facility. NLP is designed to process up to 2 million plastic beverage bottles daily.
Local Recycling Gap Persists
Despite the facility’s advanced capabilities, the Media Release highlighted a critical shortfall in collection efforts. Currently, NLP processes less than 8,00,000 plastic bottles daily, indicating a crucial need for increased community participation to maximize the facility’s impact.
The company’s commitment comes as local challenges to recycling persist. A Coca-Cola Hong Kong survey of 1,125 local consumers conducted in early September 2025 revealed that while 67.29% of Hong Kongers “are already trying to recycle as much as possible,” the infrastructure presents the greatest barrier.
The top challenge cited by respondents was “insufficient or inconvenient recycling infrastructure” (77.16%), while a notable 24.09% expressed concern that “recyclables are not properly processed.” The new local recycling loop directly addresses this skepticism by ensuring that bottles collected locally are remade into new packaging right in Hong Kong, specifically at the Coca-Cola production facility in Shatin.
Richard Gould, Director and General Manager of Swire Coca-Cola HK, emphasized the company’s role in realizing a closed-loop system. “We believe every package has value and life beyond its initial use and that it should be collected and recycled into a new package,” he stated. “With the significant investment Swire Coca-Cola has been making in New Life Plastics, we help ‘close the loop’ so we are able to create new life for plastic bottles through recycling.”
Product Innovation and Sustainability Milestones
This local recycling breakthrough complements Coca-Cola’s ongoing innovations in packaging design aimed at reducing waste and improving recyclability.
In 2024, the company successfully transitioned its 500ml Coca-Cola Trademark beverage bottles to 100% rPET (recycled plastic), excluding caps and labels. This followed a similar move in 2020 for bonaqua water (1.5L or below). Furthermore, the brand has introduced bonaqua label-less bottles to enhance recyclability and has been reducing plastic weight, with the 500ml bonaqua bottle weighing just 11.8g—52.8% lighter than typical PET bottles.
In addition to plastic reduction, the company has reintroduced Returnable Glass Bottles for key brands since 2022, supported by a self-managed return mechanism, and has transitioned both Sprite and Schweppes to clear bottles to boost material recyclability.
Iris Lee, General Manager for Hong Kong and Macau at The Coca-Cola Company, highlighted the power of the brand in influencing consumer behavior. “Through rethinking our packaging design, we’re using the power of our brands, leading with Coca‑Cola and bonaqua, to educate and inspire our consumers to contribute to collection and recycling efforts,” she commented.
The push for sustainability is aligned with consumer demand, as the survey indicated that a majority of respondents (63.56%) prioritize environmentally friendly packaging, and 80.98% are more inclined to purchase products from manufacturers demonstrating sustainability efforts.
Coca-Cola in Hong Kong confirmed its continued support for community collection programs and consumer education, partnering with organizations like Drink Without Waste and The Green Future Foundation Association to facilitate collection in various neighborhood settings. This multi-pronged effort positions the Coca-Cola system as a significant enabler of a local circular economy for plastic, aiming to close the gap between the city’s consumption and its recycling capacity.
(The story is developed from a press release issued by a Hong Kong based agency, with editing and refinement facilitated by AI tools.)