Coors Light will eliminate plastic rings from packaging where Molson Coors owns the brewing operations. To support the move to more sustainable packaging, Molson Coors Beverage Company will invest $85 million, enabling Coors Light to begin the transition to fully recyclable and sustainably sourced cardboard-wrap carriers later this year.
The Molson Coors investment will upgrade packaging machinery, which will also allow the company's entire North American portfolio of brands to advance to cardboard wrap carriers by the end of 2025. In total, the move by Molson Coors will save 1.7 million pounds of plastic waste annually. In 2021, Molson Coors removed plastic rings across all major brands sold in the United Kingdom, including Coors and Carling, and transitioned to recyclable cardboard sleeves. Molson Coors in Canada moved to more sustainable plastic rings in 2021 as an initial step and commits to eliminating plastic rings entirely.
In Canada, Coors Light's transition from plastic rings to cardboard packaging is planned to be completed by the end of 2023. In the sping of 2022, Coors Light in Canada also plans to support Plastic Bank in its mission of helping prevent plastic from entering the world's oceans in 2022.
"We believe that buying beer shouldn't mean buying plastic," said Marcelo Pascoa, vice president of marketing for the Coors Family of Brands. "That's why we're taking a step toward making packaging even more sustainable, and with this achievement Coors Light will save 400,000 pounds of single-use plastic from becoming waste across North America every year."
Molson Coors set sustainability goals in 2017 to shape the company. The three main areas of focus are water, climate, and packaging. Eliminating plastic rings pushes Molson Coors closer to its goal of ensuring packaging is 100 percent reusable, recyclable, or compostable, and consumer-facing plastic packaging is made from at least 30 percent recycled content by the end of 2025.
