Coca-Cola  working towards a World without Waste

Kathmandu, June 6 .On the occasion of World Environment Day, Coca-Cola in Nepal along with its sustainability partners came together to pledge a ‘World without Waste’. World Without Waste (WWW) is Coca-Cola’s commitment to collect and recycle the equivalent of 100% of the packaging it sells by 2030. To achieve this, the company will continue to focus on designing its packaging to be 100% recyclable across its expanding portfolio, while partnering with local communities, NGOs, industry, and consumers to collect and recycle packaging, helping ensure it doesn’t end up where it doesn’t belong. Taken together, these actions form the three pillars of its plan of Design, Collect and Partner.

At a press conference held in Kathmandu, Coca-Cola Nepal highlighted the joint efforts of all the stakeholders involved to achieve its waste management efforts.

Sundeep Bajoria, Vice President Operations, South West Asia at Coca-Cola remarked “One of the better ways to celebrate the World Environment Day is through self-assessment of our individual footprints on the environment and what measures are we taking individually and collectively to stay on the side of solutions rather than that of the problems. The same is applicable for our organizations, communities and the world. At Coca-Cola, we are committed to being on the side of the solution.

Under our ‘World Without Waste’ vision, we are undertaking several initiatives to help mitigate the problem of waste. Together with our partners, we are encouraging self-sustaining ventures with decentralized waste management and building new infrastructure for material recovery including PET and composting of wet waste. We will continue to drive the improvement on our environmental performance by bringing in innovative solutions, sensitizing communities and minimizing our impact on the local environment.”

Coca-Cola in Nepal along with its bottling partner Bottlers Nepal Limited recently has partnered with Nepal Army, Central, Provincial and local government, Nepal Mountaineering Association and SPCC in the largest ever joint initiative made to retrieve discarded garbage from Mt. Everest. Themed “Clean our Pride”, which aims to preserve the sanctity of the world’s highest mountain and keep it pristine.

Talking about the Mt. Everest Clean Up Campaign 2019 Mr. Danduraj Ghimire-Director General (Department of Tourism) shared, “We are very thankful to Nepal Army, SPCC, Coca-Cola in Nepal and Bottlers Nepal Limited for supporting the Mt. Everest Clean Up campaign. This campaign was the first and largest initiative to collect garbage from our World’s highest mountain and i am pleased to share that it has been a grand success as per our expectation. We hope similar support from Coca-Cola in Nepal and others in the private sectors in coming days.”

Mr. Ambuj Singh, Country Director, Coca-Cola in Nepal said, “We are humbled to be part of the largest initiative to keep our pride clean and we are grateful to the Nepal Army, Nepal Government, Nepal Mountaineering Association and SPCC for their partnership. At Coca-Cola, we are committed to taking all possible measures towards a litter-free world and we know that it can only be accomplished through collective partnership. Through this initiative, we aim to retrieve waste from Mt. Everest, which we hope will pave the way for keeping the mountain pristine.”

Furthermore, Coca-Cola in Nepal has announced its partnerships for 2 PET recycling projects – Nagarmitra and Recycler Saathi. As a PET recycling initiative, a cooperation agreement was signed among Coca-Cola, Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH-Germany (German Development Organization), Ganesha Ecosphere Limited-India (One of the biggest PET recycler in India) and Himalayan Climate Initiative –Nepal to establish and run a project –PET bottle re-collection system Nepal- Greening Kathmandu-Establishing a legal, responsible and environment friendly PET re-collection system.

The project continued its course in developing a responsible supply chain, creating Green jobs for women, as well as workers working off-site by setting up several clusters and organized them as an enterprise. The income of the off-site waste workers working with the project increased by 27% and that off-site workers by more than 500%.

Similarly, for the new PET recycling project with Creasion as the implementing partner, a MOU was signed between Mr. Aanand Mishra, CEO of Creasion and Mr. Ambuj Singh, Country Director, Coca-Cola in Nepal and Mr. Pradip Pandey of Bottlers Nepal Limited. In first phase The Coca-Cola foundation & Bottlers Nepal (Terai) Limited have set up a new PET collection center near the manufacturing plant in Bharatpur and Chitwan.

Coca-Cola plans to invest substantially in the project to provide momentum to its existing PET waste recovery efforts in Nepal. In partnership with Creasion, the project aims to collaborate with the local municipality, business establishments, citizens & waste pickers to emulate a multi stakeholder approach towards finding a solution to recycle PET waste in Nepal.

Mr. Aanand Mishra- CEO of Creasion shared, “Recycler Saathi is an initiative to become a friend of today’s generation in guiding them to make cleaner environment, while providing practical solution for recycling PET bottles within Nepal. We are humbled to partner with Coca-Cola and support their vision of making world without waste a reality. We are also working to make it a model project which can be replicated all over Nepal soon.”

 Talking about the efforts made by BNL on sustainability, Mr. Pradeep Pandey, Managing Director of Bottlers Nepal Ltd. shared, “Bottlers Nepal Limited remains committed in doing business responsibly while striving to reduce environmental footprints, create a safe, inclusive work environment for its associates, and enhance the economic development of the communities in Nepal.I take this opportunity to thank the Nepal Government and all our Sustainability partners, without whom our efforts would not be possible.”

Coca-Cola in Nepal along with its partner HCI and WWF also supported the government to announce Chitwan National Park as free plastic protected area.

World Without Waste is the next step in the Company’s ongoing sustainability efforts, building off success in replenishing an estimated 100% of the water it uses in its final beverages. TheCompany achieved and exceeded its water replenishment goal globally in 2015, five years ahead of expectations. These efforts are part of the Company’s larger strategy to grow with conscience, by becoming a total beverage company that grows the right way.