Working with Festival Republic, the reverse vending machines will be installed at Co-op pop up stores at Download, Latitude and Reading and Leeds festivals.
Plastic bottles sold at the pop-up stores will have a mandatory deposit added to the price, with visitors able to return them to the reverse vending machine in exchange for a voucher to spend in the on-site stores.
Bottles collected at each festival will then go on to be recycled to create bottles for Co-op’s own brand bottled water.
Jo Whitfield, retail CEO and Co-op said: “We’re committed to giving our customers ways to make more ethical choices, so this is a hugely exciting milestone in our sustainability journey to achieve our future aim of making all of our food packaging 100% recyclable.”
Co-op has pledged to make 100% of its own-brand packaging easy to recycle by 2025 and will also eliminate the use of black and dark plastics from its shelves by 2020.