Coca Cola Cleans Up

15 September 2009
Media release

Coca Cola Cleans Up

Coca-Cola Amatil (N.Z) Ltd staff picked up more than 1000 bags of rubbish from roadsides, beaches and harbours during Great New Zealand Spring Clean week.

The bottling company gave 250 of its staff paid time off to collect litter in their local communities for half a day between 4 and 11 September.

This included volunteers from the Wellington office who picked up litter along the shores of Porirua harbour, Auckland staff who collected 250 bags of rubbish from Tamaki Drive and a team from Hamilton who picked up 100 bags from the river banks at Totara Park, Hamilton.

In the South Island, Christchurch staff collected 100 bags of rubbish at Heathcote River.

Coca-Cola Amatil (N.Z) Ltd (CCANZ) Managing Director George Adams said his company was delighted to continue its involvement with Keep New Zealand Beautiful.

“We are committed to reducing waste at every stage of our business. We already minimise waste in our offices and plants, now our staff are going into their communities to get rid of rubbish too,” Mr Adams said.

Keep New Zealand Beautiful CEO Simon Johnston said Coca-Cola staff had done a great job.

“CCANZ have helped us over several years to reduce rubbish on our streets. They’ve invested time and money as well as getting their people into the clean up movement and we’re grateful for that,” Mr Johnston said.

As well as picking up other people’s litter, staff at Coca-Cola’s Putaruru plant recycled a pallet of their own electronic waste as part of national EDay. The material included computer screens and keyboards that would otherwise have gone into landfills.

CCANZ efforts to minimise waste were recognised recently when the company won an environmental packaging award.

The Packaging Council of NZ presented the Sutton Group Excellence in Environmental Management Award to Coca Cola for waste reduction and recycling initiatives at its Christchurch manufacturing plant and Putaruru water plant.

CCANZ Christchurch staff recycle dust from delivery trucks and turn it into compost, while Putaruru staff recycle paper towels by putting them directly into old boxes. The box and contents are then recycled.

“These two plants have had a 500% reduction in waste, a saving of 176 bins per year; or almost 15 elephants,” says Mr Adams.

For more information on CCANZ initiatives to reduce waste visit www.makeeverydropmatter.co.nz

ENDS

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