Coca-Cola offers discounts to UK attractions in exchange for plastic

Coca-Cola and Merlin have teamed up to provide ‘reverse vending machines’ that will be placed on the doorsteps of the most famous UK attractions.  

The trial, which started in late July, encourages families to bring their used plastic bottles in exchange for rewards at the vending machines. The machines will produce a voucher which will entitle people to 50 per cent off 30 Merlin attractions including: Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures and Alton Towers.

The General Manager of Coca-Cola Great Britain, Jon Woods, explained: “We want to reward people for doing the right thing by recycling their bottles and hope to encourage some people who wouldn’t otherwise have done so.”

The announcement comes after Coca-Cola introduced an ‘industry-first’ campaign called World without Waste, designed to help collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle sold by 2030 worldwide.

Research carried out by Coca-Cola found that 64 per cent of people in the UK would recycle more if instant rewards were introduced.

Supermarket chains, Morrisons and Iceland, have also introduced the reverse vending machines in a bid to reduce waste. The moves highlight the growing pressure for commercial brands to do more on the issue of plastic pollution.

Plastic bottles are a notable source of pollution and are responsible for a third of all plastic in the sea. Statistics show that only 43 per cent of plastic bottles are recycled in the UK, out of an estimated 13 billion distributed each year.

 

Photo Credit: CCEP