Accra Brewery Limited (ABL), a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch (AB) InBev, says it will focus more on finding solutions for the recycling of its Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles, following the separation of the Brewery and Voltic.

Before the separation of the two entities, Voltic, which used the most PET bottles, took the lead on PET recycling for the combined business and continued to do so now.

This was done using small-scale recyclers since there was no large-scale recycling plant in Ghana for the recycling of the PET bottles.

Speaking to Journalists from the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists after a tour of the Brewery’s newly expanded facilities, Mr Philip Redman, Country Director of ABL, said following the separation, ABL now had to work out what it needed to do to recycle its PET bottles.

“I totally agree we need to do much more,” he admitted, stating that ABL has been talking to some people about putting in for a recycle plant but said it was likely to do that in Nigeria quite soon.

He noted that the Brewery recognised the need to do more in that regard thus the move to put some of its products out of PET bottles and into glass bottles.

The company in December 2017 introduced returnable glass bottle versions of Beta Malt, its Malt brand, which was previously only in PET bottles.

This was in line with its 2025 sustainability Goal on reusable or recyclable packing, which requires the company partner suppliers to either make bottles 100 percent returnable or use majority of recycled materials by 2025.

“So we’ll be looking to see how we can move to that over the next few years, but we have much more to do, I don’t deny that. The good news for our business is that the vast majority of our business is in glass and it is in returnable glass, which from an environmental perspective is the best medium to go in,” he stated.

ABL, also as part of ABinBev’s global goal on Climate Action Sustainability aimed at sourcing 100 percent of its purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2025, is currently assessing a project to implement a mid-size on-site solar scheme, which will provide about three megawatts of electricity.

The company currently has streetlights on site which run on solar power, while it used bio-gas, generated from its production to power one of its boilers.