Coca-Cola Enterprises’ recycling efforts at UK music festivals this summer have been rewarded with a Best Sponsor Activation award at the UK Festival Awards 2010.
The company beat the likes of Orange, Bacardi and Virgin Media to the prize.
Its volunteer-led recycling programme, Keep it Going, involved a ‘Recycling Garden’ where festival goers could swap used plastic bottles for ponchos, caps and T-shirts made from recycled PET.
The bottles traded in where then crushed and made into useable garden furniture which revellers could use to sit and relax. More than 20,000 festival goers visited the Recycle Gardens during the summer, swapping 92,340 PET bottles for 9,000 items.
Patrick McGuirk, Recycling Director, at Coca-Cola Enterprises Europe, said: “We are delighted that our Keep It Going scheme has been recognised by the award panel with this high profile recognition of our festival recycling.
“Music festivals are a fantastic place for people to engage in recycling and the Swap for Swag proved particularly popular. More than 150 volunteers joined the initiative resulting in more than 18 tonnes of bottles and cans being recycled. Such was the scheme’s success that we have plans to extend it in GB next year.”
The Coca-Cola Recycle Garden and Swap shop was at five events in 2010: The Isle of Wight Festival, V Festival, Sonisphere, Bloodstock, and Creamfields.
The scheme is being run in partnership with Recoup and WRAP and also includes over 90 permanent recycling points in public spaces across the UK including shopping centres, hospitals, theme parks and transport hubs.
