Recovery has become a major stumbling block in the application of plastic bottles in the UK

Paul Smith, Coca-Cola's European environmental manager, claimed that if the recovery rate of plastic bottles in the UK can not be greatly improved by 2008, packaging manufacturers will consider no longer using plastic as a packaging material.

Smith believes that if the British plastic bottle recycling rate still stays at the current level, it will give the public an impression that plastic cannot be recycled. From this point of view, glass and metal have more advantages than plastics, which will exert great pressure on the plastics industry. The recycled and filled PET PET bottles currently used by Coca-Cola Company have used some recycled raw materials. Coca-Cola hopes to continue to choose the most suitable packaging material, but if the plastic recycling material can not be reused, it will prompt the manufacturer to make a decision to abandon the plastic. The British government's bottle recycling target for 2008 is that the plastic recycling rate is 0.5% higher than the 2002 level, while the glass recycling rate plan is to be increased by 27% and the metal recovery rate is to be increased by 10%.

Mr. Smith pointed out that the current status of waste plastics recycling infrastructure in the UK is poor, and there are not enough plastic bottle recycling systems to adapt and support its growing domestic plastic bottle recycling business. The low recycling rate has become an obstacle to the application of plastic bottles in the UK.