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Leading local beverage manufacturer Swire Coca-Cola HK (SCCHK) today launches freshly designed "smart" beverage bottles deposit machines under a redemption and education scheme to help drive community recycling, promote sustainable lifestyles and raise public awareness about municipal waste management.
Partnering with Octopus Cards Limited (OCL) and World Green Organisation (WGO), the SCCHK's "Tap, Return & Earn" Beverage Bottles Redemption Scheme brings together the benefits of sophisticated yet easy-to-use waste recovery technology, popular e-payment platform in town, the convenience of prime locations and strong environmental research.
Offering HK$0.2 cash rebate for every plastic beverage bottle returned via e-payment platform Octopus, the scheme is also expected to help identify the right parameters for a future viable beverage packaging recovery, reduction and recycling regime for Hong Kong under the "shared responsibility" concept.
Swire Coca-Cola Limited Executive Director - Hong Kong & Taiwan Mr Neil Waters says the joint initiative is the first of its kind tapping into the respective strengths of the partnering organisations to help drive public awareness and education on beverage packaging management.
"As industry leader, we at Swire Coca-Cola HK are fully committed as always to contributing our knowledge, experience and resources towards the building of a long-term viable municipal waste management regime," he says.
"Past local and overseas experience is clearly indicative that leaving it entirely to the respective stakeholders themselves simply would not work when it comes to effectively handling a city's waste," he explains.
"For any such regime to work as intended, everybody in the community must come together under the shared responsibility concept. From the Government and businesses to consumers and households, everybody must have a strong sense of responsibility to take part and have their respective roles to play.
"And that is exactly what has inspired us in the first place to come up with this scheme and brought together as our partners OCL and WGO, as well as the 10 participating prime properties, to join hands with us," says Mr Waters.
OCL Chief Executive Officer Mr Sunny Cheung says Octopus, being one of the most extensively accepted electronic payment platforms in Hong Kong, is delighted to lend its professional expertise and technologies to the scheme.
"We support the Government's vision for Hong Kong to becoming both a smart and sustainable city. We are excited to expand our long-standing partnership with Swire Coca-Cola HK and WGO, sharing the common goal in promoting a sustainable future through innovation and technology. The uniqueness and convenience of this rebate scheme via the Octopus platform will certainly drive higher user engagement rate," says Mr Cheung.
"Octopus is a sustainable payment solution in many ways. It effectively cuts the social costs in handling cash; promotes mobile payment that drastically reduces carbon footprint; facilitates repeated usage of the physical card; and at the same time lessens carbon emissions by making the use of public transport more convenient. Our aim in this partnership is to raise public awareness of a circular economy for plastics, transform the way we use and reuse resources, reduce waste and shift our lives in a more sustainable direction," he added.
WGO Chief Executive Officer Dr William Yu says that the Government is currently reviewing the Producer Responsibility Scheme (PRS) for plastic containers.
"Instead of waiting for the bottle bill or container deposit regulation for PET bottle to be in place in Hong Kong, I am glad to see the bottlers and beverage distributors have taken the initiative to engage the public in addressing the recycling issue. Plastic waste is becoming a global issue faced by many countries and cities. WGO will play a role to educate the public on the clean recycling concept in order to uplift the quality of the collected recyclable items," says Dr Yu.
The scheme's 10 "smart" beverage bottle deposit machines start operating non-stop from today onwards at Citygate (Tung Chung), Discovery Bay Pier (Central), Festival Walk (Kowloon Tong), HKSKH Tung Chung Integrated Services (Tung Chung), Metro Plaza (Kwai Fong), Taikoo Place (Quarry Bay), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shatin), The Mills (Tsuen Wan), TKO Plaza (Tseung Kwan O) and V City (Tuen Mun).
The machines are designed to accept plastic beverage bottles of any brand with capacity from 330mL to 2 litres. Information stored in a bottle's barcode is scanned for identification and data analysis before it is compressed and deposited into the machine's receptacle for collection by authorised recyclers.
Educational information about proper recycling procedures has been incorporated into the machine as part of its digital bilingual user interface, guiding users with clear on-screen instructions and offering cash rebates as incentives for participation.
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Demonstration Video for "Tap, Return & Earn" Beverage Bottles Redemption Scheme Launch
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About Swire Coca-Cola HK
Swire Coca-Cola HK (SCCHK) has been the authorized bottler and distributor of The Coca-Cola Company since 1965. It is the leading non-alcoholic beverage manufacturer in Hong Kong which serves a wide range of beverages including "Coca-Cola", "Sprite", "Fanta", "Schweppes", "Bonaqua" Mineralized Water, "Aquarius", "Minute Maid", "Minute Maid Qoo", "Authentic Tea House", "fuze Tea", "HealthWorks", "Glaceau vitaminwater", "Yeung Gwong", "Appletiser", "ZICO", and "Monster". Apart from the products of The Coca-Cola Company, SCCHK also distributes "Nestea" tea drinks, "Nestle" ready-to-drink coffee and milk tea.
About Octopus Cards Limited (Licence Number: SVF0001)
Operating under the Stored Value Facilities Licence, Octopus Cards Limited (OCL) provides innovative offline and online Octopus payment services to meet customers' diverse payment needs.
Launched in 1997 by OCL, the Octopus system in Hong Kong is one of the world's leading and most extensively accepted contactless smartcard payment systems. Its aspiration is to bring diversity and inclusion in payment to customers of all facets of life.
Today, more than 36 million Octopus cards and products are in circulation. The Octopus system handles 15 million transactions a day, with an aggregate transaction value of HK$220 million. It is used at 30,000 retail outlets in the market, spanning businesses including public transport, parking, retail, self-help services, schools and leisure facilities, and access control for residential and commercial buildings. Octopus' application has been extended to online and mobile payment arenas, with products including Octopus O! ePay, Octopus App, Smart Octopus in Samsung Pay and Octopus Mobile SIM, bringing new payment experiences to customers.
The Octopus Group exports its unique experience and technology overseas, offering consultancy services across the world. The mission of OCL is simple: Making everyday life easier by using innovative payment technology.
www.octopus.com.hk
About World Green Organisation
The World Green Organisation (WGO) is an independent non-governmental organisation concerned with environmental conservation and environmentally related livelihood and economic affairs. We aim to improve the economy, the environment and people's living through science-based public policies and comprehensive community projects, helping all sectors especially the grassroots to meet the challenges and implement the vision of sustainable development. For more information about our organisation, please view our website: http://www.thewgo.org/.