Coca-Cola debuts paperboard six-pack collar in Europe

Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) has introduced a paperboard (nonplastic) CanCollar for multiple beverage can applications in Spain. The CanCollar has been designed for CCEP, in partnership with Coca-Cola, “to remove all unnecessary or hard to recycle plastic” from its portfolio, avoiding the use of more than 11,000 metric tons of virgin plastic in Western Europe, the bottling firm says.

CCEP says it collaborated with United States-based WestRock on the CanCollar paperboard can ring and has introduced it in the Balearic Islands region of Spain.

The bottler says it has invested 2.6 million euros ($3.1 million) at its Barcelona bottling plant to install the equipment that will enable multipack cans to use the WestRock paperboard collar, in a process CCEP says does not require the use of glue or adhesives.

“The agreement with WestRock exemplifies our clear commitment to reduce plastic in our secondary packaging,” says Joe Franses, vice president of sustainability at CCEP. “By the end of 2020, we will have removed more than 4,000 metric tons of hard to recycle plastic from our secondary packaging in Western Europe. It’s through collaborating on innovative packaging solutions like CanCollar that we are able to do this.”

Comments Dwayne Irvin, vice president of enterprise solutions at WestRock, “We are proud of our longstanding partnership with Coca-Cola. For 70 years we have supported Coca-Cola in bringing innovation to global beverage markets.” Adds Irvin, in reference to a Coca-Cola sustainability program, “CanCollar is the latest initiative supporting Coca-Cola’s vision to create a World Without Waste.”