Coca-Cola’s green efforts got attention recently for its Eagan bottling facility (full disclosure: Midwest Coca-Cola Bottling Company is a client of Tunheim Partners). The Eagan bottling plant is using some innovative ways to reach its goal to recycle 100 percent of the amount of material that is consumed at the location. For example, the plant recycles nearly every piece of cardboard it receives and has bought a new machine that crushes plastic and aluminum quickly and cleanly, which allows Coke to send the waste directly to a recycler.
In addition, one of the more unique energy-saving techniques is the use of two inch tall plastic tubes that expand into full sized plastic bottles when heat and air are applied. Click on the above picture to watch the video and see how this works. The amount of gas saved by shipping the tiny bottles should pay for the system in about four years.
“If we ship [the regular size bottle] across the road we need about 8.7 truckloads of these to make one truck load of [the tiny bottles],” Stan Mathews, Production Manager of the Coca-Cola Eagan plant told WCCO’s Frank Vascellaro. “So we’re basically saving 7-and-a-half trips by sending it in [the regular size bottle] configurations versus [the tiny bottle] configuration.
To learn what else Coke is doing to shrink its carbon footprint click here.
