Sustainable packaging: Sit on some Coke!Sustainable packaging: Sit on some Coke!

David Bellm

January 29, 2014

2 Min Read
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coke_navy_chair_v2.jpgI always like stories of packaging that’s recycled into cool stuff. Terracycle’s goods are the most famous examples of this lately, but certainly not the only ones. Coca-Cola Company and furniture manufacturer Emeco have announced a new take on a classic piece of furniture, made this time from recycled rPET Coke bottles instead of aluminum.

The product of this collaboration is said to use at least 111 recycled plastic bottles. It’s called the “111 Navy Chair.” Modeled after the original aluminum Emeco Navy Chair designed in 1944 for the U.S. Navy, each 111 Navy Chair contains a mix of 60 percent rPET plastic and a special combination of other materials including pigment and glass fiber for strength.

It’s estimated that more than three million PET plastic bottles will be repurposed annually for the production of 111 Navy Chairs.

“The 111 Navy Chair is a reflection of our commitment to sustainability, constant innovation and originality in design,” said Kate Dwyer, Group Director, Worldwide Licensing, The Coca-Cola Company. “This latest addition to our line of rPET licensed merchandise underscores the fact that Coca-Cola bottles are valuable recyclables. It is another step in our vision to recover and reuse all of our bottles and cans.”

The rPET content in each chair is sourced from the world’s largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant that began operation in 2009 in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the United States through a partnership between The Coca-Cola Company and United Resource Recovery Corp.

The chairs will be available for sale in June 2010 in select retail locations worldwide and can also be ordered by sending an email to [email protected]. 111 Navy Chairs are available in six colors: Coca-Cola Red, Snow, Flint, Grass, Persimmon and Charcoal.

“When Coca-Cola approached me with this project I jumped on it,” said Gregg Buchbinder, Chairman of Emeco. “Although reengineering a core product is a significant investment for us, I was excited about the impact of reusing the PET from about three million plastic bottles a year. That’s a lot of bottles and a lot of chairs. The new chair is the strongest, and most beautiful we can make. We’ve turned something many people throw away into something you want and can keep for a long, long time.”

Coca-Cola first launched rPET merchandise in 2007 as a way to inspire people to recycle by showing them how PET bottles can be transformed into products for everyday use. rPET merchandise includes fashionable t-shirts, bags, caps, notebooks and now a chair made of recycled plastic bottles. Each item indicates the number of plastic bottles used to create it. The rPET merchandise line is just one of many sustainability initiatives by The Coca-Cola Company and is a testament of the Company’s long history in innovation.

The 111 Navy Chair debuts this week at the 2010 Salone Internazionale del Mobile, one of the top furniture trade shows in the world, running April 14 to 19.

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Source: Coca-Cola, Emeco

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