Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Launches Pacific PET Recycling Pathway to Australia

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Australia has launched a new Pacific PET circularity program designed to move community-collected plastic bottles from Pacific Island nations into Australia’s established recycling supply chain.

The first shipment, made up of 9.4 tonnes of PET collected in Vanuatu, has arrived in Melbourne for processing at Circular Plastics Australia’s PET recycling facility in Altona North. The material will be recycled into high-quality food-grade resin, which can then be used to manufacture new beverage bottles and other food packaging.

The initiative is being led by Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, known as CCEP, in partnership with Circular Plastics Australia, a joint venture involving Pact Group, Cleanaway Waste Management, Asahi Beverages and CCEP. According to the company, the program is intended to establish a regular route for PET collected in Pacific communities to be processed in Australia, where suitable recycling infrastructure already exists.

The project is being rolled out across Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu. Further shipments from Fiji and Papua New Guinea are expected to arrive in the coming weeks. CCEP says the program could import up to 2,000 tonnes of PET over the next 12 months, with the potential to scale to around 6,000 tonnes per year.

Why the Pacific Needs Cross-Border Recycling Routes

Pacific Island nations face a specific challenge in plastic waste management. Many have small populations, dispersed geography, high transport costs and limited domestic recycling capacity. As a result, PET bottles and other plastic packaging often cannot be processed locally at the scale or quality required for bottle-to-bottle recycling.

This creates a circular economy gap. Even where communities collect and sort plastic, there may be no local facility capable of turning that material into food-grade recycled PET. Without access to processing infrastructure, collected plastic can still end up stockpiled, landfilled, burned or leaked into the environment.

A World Bank report on single-use plastics in the Pacific notes that Pacific Island countries face municipal solid waste management challenges linked to insufficient infrastructure, geographic constraints and limited resources. The problem is particularly important for island economies, where ocean health is tied closely to fisheries, tourism, food security and community resilience.

The CCEP-led program is therefore not only a recycling initiative. It is also a logistics and infrastructure model. PET collected in local communities is prepared for export through early-stage processing equipment, then shipped to Australia for further recycling. Swire Shipping is providing pro bono ocean freight services to support the viability of the route.

Australia’s Recycling Capacity Becomes a Regional Asset

The program relies on Circular Plastics Australia’s Altona North facility, which was developed to process PET beverage bottles collected through Australian container deposit schemes and kerbside recycling systems. The facility produces recycled PET resin suitable for use in new beverage bottles and food packaging.

Circular Plastics Australia says its wider network includes three facilities capable of recycling more than 60,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic packaging into high-quality resins each year, including food-grade material. The Altona North PET plant has also been described as capable of producing around 20,000 tonnes of recycled PET resin annually when fully operational.

For beverage producers, access to reliable food-grade recycled PET is increasingly important. Companies are under pressure from packaging regulations, voluntary recycled content targets, consumer expectations and corporate climate commitments. Recycled PET can reduce demand for virgin fossil-based plastic resin, although the total environmental benefit depends on collection systems, transport emissions, processing efficiency and whether recycled material replaces new plastic rather than adding to overall packaging demand.

CCEP has already made recycled plastic a core part of its packaging strategy. The company says its sustainability plan includes collecting and recycling the equivalent of at least 85% of the bottles and cans it sells by 2030, and increasing recycled plastic use across its PET packaging. In Australia, Coca-Cola states that its soft drink and water bottles under one litre are made from 100% recycled plastic, excluding caps and labels.

Implications for Producers and Policymakers

The Pacific PET program is relevant beyond the beverage sector because it shows how producer responsibility can operate across borders. In many small island markets, a purely domestic recycling system may not be commercially viable because volumes are too low and capital costs are too high. Regional aggregation, supported by brands, recyclers, logistics firms and local collection networks, may offer a more practical route.

For companies placing packaged goods on the market, the initiative also highlights the growing importance of supply chain responsibility after the sale. Extended producer responsibility policies are expanding globally, and businesses are increasingly expected to help finance or organize collection, sorting and recycling systems for the packaging they sell.

However, cross-border recycling is not a complete solution. It depends on consistent collection quality, transparent material tracking, stable shipping routes and careful emissions accounting. Exporting waste for recycling can also raise concerns if oversight is weak. In this case, the material is being sent to an established Australian facility that produces food-grade resin for new packaging. Still, long-term credibility will depend on reporting how much PET is collected, how much is successfully recycled, and what share returns into bottle or packaging production.

For Pacific Island communities, the main benefit could be the creation of a practical outlet for PET bottles that would otherwise have limited value. If collection systems are well designed, they may also support local jobs, community clean-up efforts, and reduce plastic leakage into waterways and coastal environments.

A Test Case for Regional Circular Economy Models

The first 9.4-tonne shipment from Vanuatu is modest in scale, but the planned expansion to 2,000 tonnes in the first year and up to 6,000 tonnes annually would make the program more significant. It could provide a test case for how large consumer goods companies use existing recycling capacity in larger markets to support circularity in smaller neighbouring economies.

The model may be particularly relevant for island regions where plastic pollution is visible, recycling infrastructure is limited, and transport logistics are difficult. If successful, it could encourage similar partnerships for other packaging materials, although PET remains one of the more technically and commercially viable plastics for closed-loop recycling.

For now, the initiative is an early but practical step. It does not eliminate the need to reduce unnecessary single-use packaging, improve local waste systems or develop reuse models. But it does create a clearer pathway for collected PET in Pacific Island nations to re-enter the packaging supply chain rather than becoming unmanaged waste.

Source: www.processonline.com.au