Coca-Cola unveiled on Thursday a new plastic bottle made partially from plants. Trademarked the PlantBottle, it is fully recyclable like other plastics yet eases the company’s reliance on petroleum resources, while reducing their carbon emissions by up to 25%.
The PlantBottle is made through a process that turns sugar cane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production, into a key component for PET plastic.
Traditional PET bottles are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource. The new bottle is made from a blend of petroleum-based materials and up to 30 percent plant-based materials.
Coca-Cola North America will pilot the PlantBottle with Dasani and “sparkling brands” in select markets later this year and with vitaminwater in 2010.
Earlier this year, the Company opened the world’s largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C. to produce approximately 100 million pounds of recycled PET plastic for reuse each year – the equivalent of nearly 2 billion 20-ounce Coca-Cola bottles.
This is great news! I wondered why we didn’t hear about more efforts to use plants to reduce petroleum in plastics… all we heard from MSM was the bio-fuel debate. I’m also very happy that big corporations are starting to take steps.
[…] Trademarked as the PlantBottle, the fully recyclable PET plastic bottles are a vast improvement over the 30% plant-based Coke bottles introduced in 2009. […]