The Circular Economy of PET bottles in Colombia

Our objective is to analyze the characteristics underlying the implementation of the Circular Economy strategy for Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles and its influence on the management of such a container in Colombia for deployment and operation. According to Greenpeace International (2018), the packaging "use-and-throw-away" lifestyle has unleashed an emergency that has struck the health of ecosystems and living beings due to the use of plastic. Industries need to speed up their migration from a "linear economy" model, which implies producing, using, and disposing of goods, towards a "circular economy" that maximizes the use of resources and converts their waste into new materials (WEF, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and McKinsey and Company, 2016). A descriptive methodology coupled with content analysis and in-depth interview was applied to characterize the use of PET bottles in the beverage industry in Colombia. The research identified the logistics chain (recycling - warehousing - transformer - producer - distributor - customer - consumption) and found problems in the recycling stage. PET producers have new responsibilities, namely Postobon, Coca-Cola, and Bavaria, with the first two leading the application of the circular economy on PETs for a decade.