PET recycling facility forced to close because Coke doesn't

mappelho@madison.tdsnet.com
Fri, 22 Jan 1999 16:55:32 -0500


Here is a concrete example of how Coke's failure to recycle caused the
shut-down of a recycling facility:

"wTe Corp Closes Plastics Recycling Facility
Lack of sufficient supply forced wTe Corp., Bedford, MA, to shutter
its Hayward, CA, plastic bottle recycling facility, just 14 months after
its opening in August 1995. The $3.5 (million?) facility owned and
operated by Certified Polymer Processors, a sibsidiary of wTe Corp., had a
capacity to process 40 million pounds per year of soft drink bottles made
from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic. The plant, which debaled
and granulated post-consumer bottles and manufacturing scrap, sold the
produced flake to wTe for further processing and was scheduled to add a
washing and pelletizing system if the project had successed as planned.
The project relied upon an 11-year agreement with the Plastics
Recycling Corp of California (PRCC) to supply 30 million pounds of PET per
year. But PRCC, which is owned by Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and several other
large soft-drink and bottling operations, "did not supply the amount or the
quality of PET fedstocks that were required," said wTe's Leight Alan
Peritz. "After a seven-year effort to develop a PET bottle recycling
facility in California, it is very disappointing to have shut the plant
down."
The project employed the MSS BottleSort=AE System to remove PVC
contamination and to sort green bottles from clear bottles. wTe continues
to operate a PET recycling facility in Altany, NY.
from SOLID WASTE TECHNOLOGIES, Nov-Dec, 1996, p 10.

Here's a little guerrila punch: I accessed the Coke Website and found one
of their feedback pages. Question of the week was: "If aliens landed in
your backyard, what's the first thing you would ask them?"

I responded, "Can you tell me why Coca-Cola doesn't recycle its
containers when it makes so much sense?"

Mary Appelhof