Coca-Cola unveils plant-based bottle
- Filed in:
- Bottles,
- Bioplastics,
- Beverage
The Coca-Cola Company has unveiled a new plastic bottle made partially from plants. According to information from the company, the new PlantBottle™ is fully recyclable, has a lower reliance on a nonrenewable resource, and reduces carbon emissions, compared with petroleum-based PET plastic bottles.
“The PlantBottle is a significant development in sustainable packaging innovation,” says Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company. “It builds on our legacy of environmental ingenuity and sets the course for us to realize our vision to eventually introduce bottles made with materials that are 100-percent recyclable and renewable.”
Traditional PET bottles are made from petroleum. The new bottle is made from a blend of petroleum-based materials and up to 30% plant-based materials. The PlantBottle is made through a process that turns sugar cane and molasses, a byproduct of sugar production, into a key component for PET plastic. Coca-Cola is also exploring the use of other plant materials for future generations of the PlantBottle.
According to Coca-Cola, manufacturing the new plastic bottle is more environmentally efficient as well. A life-cycle analysis conducted by the Imperial College of London indicates the PlantBottle reduces carbon emissions by up to 25%, compared with petroleum-based PET. The PlantBottle can also be processed through existing manufacturing and recycling facilities without contaminating traditional PET. So, the material in the PlantBottle can be used, recycled, and reused again and again.
“The PlantBottle represents the next step in evolving our system toward the bottle of the future,” says Scott Vitters, director of Sustainable Packaging of The Coca-Cola Company. “This innovation is a real win because it moves us closer to our vision of zero waste with a material that lessens our carbon footprint and is also recyclable.”
Coca-Cola North America will pilot the PlantBottle with Dasani and sparkling brands in select markets later this year and with VitaminWater in 2010. The bottles will be identified through on-package messages and in-store point of sale displays. Web-based communications will also highlight the bottles’ environmental benefits.
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Is the PET molecular bi-orientacion possible in this kind of bottle?
A new threat to forests and water resources!
How much forest and grassland will they destroy to grow the sugar cane plantations needed to produce the 'not-so-green' cellulose they plan to greenwash their bottles with?
In my view this is a token effort aimed mainly at fooling consumers into drinking more of their toxic sugar-water!
Wally Menne
The climate required to grow sugar cane and the climate required for rain forests -- which most consumers erroneously believe are being cut down to grow sugar cane for these types of biopolymers -- are totally different. So your answer is "none." This is exactly the type of hype propagated by consumers who don't do their research before offering opinions that leads to even greater mis-informatoin about next-generations of technologies that will make our lives and the lives of our global community better, not worse.
I think that Wally needs to stop hating... I'd be curious to know what the new recycling code would be. Pure PET bottles are coded at 1 which makes recycling much easier. The new bottles may be capable of being recyclable but will probably also require much more processing to do so. It's a give and take with sustainability. It's all in the way they market it.
Tons of give and take. It's what I call the "unintended consequences" of sustainable packaging. If you don't design in second- or alternative life options, those consequences will become unmanageble. A holistic, systems solution approach can not only make them manageable, but profitable in these second-life scenrios. There is huge debate re: what % of PLA/biopolymers on a PPM/PPB basis will contaminate the PET recycle stream. Remember, before the advent of the 1-liter PET bottle in the late '70s, the PET recycling stream was non-existent, and today its well established. Give it time.
I think wally is right on. If those plastics are easy to recycle and impact the environment less, great. However, they still require a ton of resources to create in the first place. Not to mention all the resources that will be wasted as the 3-a-day Coke drinkers develop diabetes. This is a marketing gimmick. If you want to have less of an environmental impact, stop drinking Coke.
I'd like to understand exactly how this bottle is recyclable. The recycling plants that I've been to separate PET and non PET bottles using positive separation (keeping the correct bottle type in the recycling stream and rejecting the others) with infared technology first, then with floatation techniques.
PLA and PET have very similar densities and can't be separated very well at all. This means that the PLA flakes end up in the furnace and they pretty much act as a glue to the PET flakes, therefore causing big problems in the recycling stream.
The cellulose/PET bottle would surely create the same problem therefore I'm VERY sceptical about this concept.
First of all they will not be using cane to make the sugar for the packaging. Beet sugar is the primary sugar marketed these days; if you go to your local store, you'll see one is labeled 100% sugar and the other higher-quality bag of sugar is pure cane sugar. So I don't know how you conclude the destruction of our forest to make more farmland as you put it. Coke is making a better world, or at least is trying, and all you can do is be a part of the problem rather than the solution. I own Coke stock and am proud of what we are doing.
Dear Joe,
Please take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose.
The cellulose required to make Coke's bottles will need to be derived from plant fiber, not refined white sugar from any source let alone sugar beet which (if it was the source of the cellulose) would also cause the loss of some type of natural habitat (including forests).
I stopped drinking Coke on principle about 15 years ago, when I realised how damaging it is to poor rural people in Africa where I live. They have been brainwashed into spending more than US $1 for a 2-litre bottle or about US$.70 for a 340mm can while their children are underfed and undereducated.
Joe, please give it some thought. In my view the best thing you could do is to sell your Coke stock and give the money to an appropriate environmental organisation like the Dogwood Alliance.
Best wishes
Wally
They will be using cane. The recipe is as follows: 2 main ingredients, mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA). With the PlantBottle, Coke is making MEG from glucose materials obtained from plants. Today Coke is using sugar cane or sugar cane by-products...and is working on solutions for using non-edible plant waste material in the future.
You want to tell me Coke does nothing good for anyone, well I'm sorry to tell you it shows your narrowness and shortsightedness. No one holds a gun to anyone's head to buy a Coke product...the company wouldn't allow it. You need to see how much money it gives in charity and helps folks in Africa before you bash them. Good day.
Joe
Is it me or is this site for constructive information and opinion sharing rather than heckling?
Does anyone know about the composition of the Coke bottle?
My sources in Brazil tell me the supplier is Reliance.
How much will this add to the price of a bottle of Coke? Say what you will, but it's all about profit, which I don`t have a problem with, but I don't want to pay extra because
it costs more "to save the environment." They will use that as some kind of gimmick so that people will feel better about drinking Coke. Please, we are not stupid and it's not about "saving the earth."
Thanks for the interest in our new PlantBottle. I manage The Coca-Cola Company's worldwide sustainable packaging program and appreciate the questions.
The PET polymer is made from 2 main ingredients, mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) and purified terephthalic acid (PTA). With the PlantBottle, we are making MEG from glucose materials obtained from plants (today we are using sugar cane or sugar cane by-products...and are working on solutions for using non-edible plant waste material in the future). We actually spent over a year working on the sourcing strategy to ensure we understood its eco performance against a range of emissions and resource related metrics.
The PlantBottle is a PET plastic bottle (just PET made partially from plants), so it has exactly the same performance as the current PET bottle (there is no difference in shelf life, weight, chemical composition or appearance when compared to existing (petroleum-based) PET plastic bottles. The bottle will have the same recycling code and will be fully recyclable along with other PET bottles in the existing PET recycling infrastructure.
The recyclability of the bottle is one of the things that really excites us about this technology. Recovering the embodied energy and material in a package for use again is critical for advancing toward our zero waste vision. As you may be aware, we have our own recycling collection business in North America called Coca-Cola Recycling and recently invested in the world's largest PET plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant (our sixth recycling plant investment worldwide). PlantBottle is fully compatible with these operations.
Best,
Scott Vitters
Director, Sustainable Packaging
The Coca-Cola Company
Great overview Scott. This is the info that's been missing from Coke's PR campaign.
Is this technology based on the work Tate & Lyle did in the 1970's? I had been told that they developed many processes for using sugar as a feed stock for plastics back then. It did not go anywhere then because oil never climbed high enough in price to make the technologies profitable.
Scott,
I think this is a fantastic move on Coca Cola's part. What you said: "today we are using sugar cane or sugar cane by-products...and are working on solutions for using non-edible plant waste material in the future" is very important. Sugar cane now, but that could potentially move other sources. However, the reduced load on petroleum resources will still be in effect.
Best of all, there is no change to the polymer itself, eliminating compatibility issues down the line.
Have you heard from your supplier whether sugarcane based MEG will apply to flexible PET films as well? It would make a large impact to the flexible packaging industry.
If you are able to share, I would be interested to read on the ecoperformance analysis.
My contact info is wzhang@celplast.com
Regards,
- Weijia Zhang
Celplast Metallized Products
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the clarification. The last sentence says that your bottle is 'fully compatible with these operations' - does this mean that it is only fully compatible with the recycling plants that Coke has set up? Or is it fully recyclable with all PET recycling plants or specifically bottle to bottle? It would be great if you could clarify.
Thanks
Good clarification question on the recyclability of PlantBottle. The bottle is PET and therefore can be recycled in any existing rPET end-market. As we do with any new plastic container related innovation in North America, we have also reviewed the recycling perfomance of PlantBottle with the Association of Plastic Packaging Recyclers (APR).
I personally applaud Coca-Cola, because not only will this effect them, but down the line hopefully it will effect the rest of the plastic industry. Instead of belittling company's minor changes and looking at every possible flaw, maybe we should instead encourage them to continue making these changes and doing research to better their ideas. This isn't just effecting those who drink Coke, plastic PET packaging is everywhere and making one small step to reduce the need for oil that could be used for other things is a great step. What makes it even better than some of those other plant-based plastics out there is that it can be used in the recycling system without issues. Bravo Coca-Cola keep up the good work!
Thank you. None of the remarks had to do with the step in the right direction with recycling, but about the company Coca-Cola who I am invested with. For me it was two different issues they wanted to blur to meet their needs. All I am saying is I am glad any company is trying, no matter if I am an invester or not. Thank you again for reading things and seeing the good -- at least someone is doing something.
Joe
Thank You Scott
I apologize to anyone that there was some side tracking to a reply I made, but I had been quite insulted by some lack of information by an individual and unfortunately this was my only outlet to either cough up information or shut up. I have read quite a lot about the new bottle but since I don't personally work for Coke I couldn't convince individuals that it was not the fiber of the cane being used. Again thank you Scott and to those it applies, I am sorry.
I, WILLIAM DAVID BEDOR HAVE BEEN CUT BY THE NEW BOTTLE TOP AND IT IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO OPEN THEM AS FAR AS GRIP IS CONCERNED. THERE WAS MORE OF A BETTER GRIP TO THE OLD ONE AND MUCH MORE ON A PERFERATED EDGE TO GRAB ONTO. I JUST OPENED ONE AND IT SLICED MY RIGHT PALM THUMB AND FIRST INDEX FINGER. POOR DESIGN.
Sir
The misinformation I have heard pertaining to these bottles is stacking up. First I want to know what makes you think you are using the new bottle and not the old, because Coke put out many cases of placebos of these new bottles. Second I would like to point out the biggest point that you seem to be misunderstanding is that Coca-Cola only has changed the plastic's content which now consists of a sugar base along with the normal material they have used for years just like Pepsi-Co and over 100 other brands. All Coke is doing is trying to reduce the amount of oil-based products and that has nothing to do with the redesign of the bottle's top.
You Sir may very well be a genius.....However without trying to insult your integrity "The bottle top design has changed".
Now I am in my office in sandy springs Georgia yesterday and I opened the bottle and my RIGHT thumb is sliced open (which bled) and the wound is about roughly 2 inches or so and is located where the thumb meets the hand and my left index finger on the right side middle segment is sliced about 1in a half inches.
Now I am half a century old and can tell you that I grew up with the bottle caps that were made from metal and had cork on the inside liner and you needed a bottle opener to pop them off or had to use the one attached to the machine that served them.
So to answer your concern Mr. Prescott on knowing the difference between old and new then the answer is YES! I think I know the difference between and old style and a new one.
Would you like to see the pictures?
Respectfully, I remain
Wm. D. Bedor
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