Rethinking packaging: the case for reuse

Coca Cola Latin America in 2018,
they launched what they call the

universal bottle. The universal
bottle is like a reinvention of

that old glass refillable bottle
that we some of us can remember

from when we were younger. But
this one, this new one it's made

of a kind of a rigid plastic,
and it can be reused up to 25

times and it's called universal
because they designed one single

shape that can be refilled with
any soda flavour any brand, any

beverage from the company which
is completely different from the

model that they had before. So
this universal bottle has a high

value proposition for the
consumers as they can get a 30%

discount when buying a new
bottle bringing their empty

bottle back, but also to the
company because with this

universal shape, they have
increased significantly the

operational efficiency not only
inside the plants, but also in

the retails, so it's helping
them to increase their

distribution. So with all these
different benefits, what

happened is that in 2019, the
refillable bottles to give you

an example only in Brazil, it
was representing 22% of

everything that the company was
selling already. And 22% in a

country like Brazil, for a
company like Coca Cola means 1.8

billion one way bottles that
were not produced because of the

scale of this reuse. And this
was before the crisis.