Coca-Cola to Release Eco-Friendly “PlantBottles”

Last month, I told you all about the Plastic Vortex, a swirling mass of plastic refuse in the Pacific Ocean that’s twice the size of Texas. Plastic bottles are some of the most common items found in the vortex, and are contributing heavily to the mass-scale pollution. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 22 billion plastic bottles are thrown away each year in the United States—that’s about 20 million per day! Clearly, even if we scale up our recycling, reducing and reusing efforts on a massive scale, something still needs to done about the make-up of these bottles.

Coca-Cola thinks they may have the answer in the PlantBottle, a new bioplastic bottle they have developed. Bioplastics, which are plastics made with biomass instead of petroleum, have been becoming more and more popular as an environmentally-friendly way to package goods. Bioplastics are much more sustainable than traditional plastics, with much smaller carbon footprints and reduced toxin levels. PlantBottles are made with spent sugar cane and molasses, and in their current formulation, cut carbon emissions per bottle by a whopping 25 percent. Coca-Cola is gearing up to start using PlantBottles for Dasani brand water in select markets by the end of the year, with VitaminWater following next year.

According to CEO Muhlar Kent, Coca-Cola has a "vision to eventually introduce bottles made with materials that are 100 percent recyclable and renewable." Though this version of the PlantBottle is only 30 percent bioplastic and will only see limited distribution for the foreseeable future, this is still a massive step in the right direction.

Comments

[Nolan]

That is a great article. I'm glad to hear they are doing so much to conserve.