NAIROBI: Trash Thread Textile in conjunction with Coca-Cola Beverages Africa and PETCO have launched an innovation challenge that aims to provide innovative solutions to bale post-consumer PET plastic in order to ease their transportation for recycling and manufacturing.
The competition dubbed Beyond Baling Innovation Challenge (BBIC) will target University students, Small and Medium Enterprises and the JuaKali sector to come up with solutions of baling PET plastic so as to properly manage them.
“The Coca-Cola Company and its bottlers are leading the industry with a bold, ambitious goal: to help collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030. We’re reimagining our packaging to make it better for our planet and our business. We’re working to build better bottles because packaging shouldn’t harm our world.” said Daryl Wilson, Managing Director of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa in Kenya.
“We’re also partnering with communities and industry to lead the drive for a World Without Waste. This is where our BBIC programme is key – we’re working to bring people together to help us collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one we sell. Regardless of where it comes from, we want every package to have more than one life.” Mr. Wilson added.
The challenge will identify and award the best innovations to bale post-consumer PET plastic in Manual Baler, Renewable Energy Powered Baler and Grid Powered Baler categories.
“PET plastic is bulky therefore a challenge to transport. Due to this, we need to compress and bale it. Instead of importing balers, we wish to tap into our abundant local resources to innovate local balers and encourage baler manufacturing in Kenya.” Said Gurpreet Kenth – CEO T3 Group.
The competition targets to promote and nurture innovations in Kenya which will enhance commercialization and generation of wealth, employment and youth entrepreneurship which is in line with the Big 4 Agenda.
“That plastic waste is a challenge globally today is not in question, that there are opportunities that exist in the management of plastic waste has been contentious. However, the realities across the globe show us that the plastics recycling industry is set to grow to close to 6 billion Kenya shilling industry by 2023,” said Joyce Waweru PETCO Kenya Country Manager.
In line with the national solid waste management strategy and national plastic recycling strategy, the competition seeks to collect and recycle postconsumer PET bottles across the country as it taps into the innovative technical space and establish partnerships for business development, awareness building and support recycling and manufacturing.
About CCBA
As Africa’s largest Coca-Cola bottler and the world’s 8th largest by revenue – Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) bottles and distributes trademarked beverages owned by The Coca-Cola Company. With over 15,000 employees in Africa – 2,700 of these in Kenya – and 4 bottling plants in Kenya (in Nairobi, Kisumu and Nakuru counties), CCBA services millions of customers with a host of international and local brands.
CCBA was formed in July 2016 following the successful combination of the Southern and East Africa bottling operations of the non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages businesses of The Coca-Cola Company, SABMiller plc and Gutsche Family Investments (GFI). CCBA shareholders now are: The Coca-Cola Company 65.5% and Gutsche Family Investments 34.5%.
In July 2017, CCBA acquired Kisumu’s Equator Bottlers Limited in Kenya. We are also the exclusively appointed distributors of the Gruppo Campari range of products in Kenya.
We are proudly Kenyan, and note that in addition to the above-mentioned shareholding, Centum Investments Co. Limited has been a shareholder in our business since 1978.
