The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, and furniture manufacturer Emeco, Hanover, Pa., created a chair made from at least 111 recycled plastic Coca-Cola bottles. The chair is known as 111 Navy Chair and debuted this week in Milan at the 2010 Salone Internazionale del Mobile, an international furniture trade show.

Each 111 Navy Chair contains a mix of 60 percent recycled PET (rPET) plastic and a special combination of other materials including pigment and glass fiber for strength. The chairs will be available in six colors, including Coca-Cola Red, and will be offered in select retail locations worldwide as well as online in June.

“The 111 Navy Chair is a reflection of our commitment to sustainability, constant innovation and originality in design,” said Kate Dwyer, group director of worldwide licensing for The Coca-Cola Co., in a statement. “This latest addition to our line of rPET licensed merchandise underscores the fact that Coca-Cola bottles are valuable recyclables. It is another step in our vision to recover and reuse all of our bottles and cans.”

It is estimated that more than three million PET plastic bottles will be repurposed annually for the production of 111 Navy Chairs, which are modeled after the aluminum chair Emeco designed for the U.S. Navy in 1944. The rPET content in each chair is sourced from the plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C., that opened in 2009 through a partnership between The Coca-Cola Co. and United Resource Recovery Corp. Read about more about the plant, in Beverage Industry's article on the facility.

For more on Coca-Cola’s sustainability initiatives, read Beverage Industry’s Plant Focus from Coca-Cola Enterprises’ Niles, Ill., production facility.