(Credit: Coca-Cola)Two of The Coca-Cola Company’s North American brands are focusing on the circular economy for their plastic packaging. Dasani is rolling out bottles made from 100% recycled PET plastic (excluding caps and labels), and Sprite is transitioning from green to clear plastic to increase the material’s likelihood of being remade into new beverage bottles.
The Dasani announcement follows the launch of 100% recycled plastic bottles in New York, California and Texas, which also included Coca-Cola trademark 20 ounce bottles. The launch helped the Coca-Cola system identify the best-quality sources of recycled PET (rPET) and fine-tune production processes needed to make 100% recycled plastic bottles.
A majority of Dasani bottles in the United States and all of them in Canada will be offered in 100% recycled plastic rolling out this summer. The company says this shift supports both Dasani’s pledge to remove the equivalent of 2 billion virgin plastic bottles from production by 2027 compared to 2021 levels and the company’s World Without Waste goal to use at least 50% recycled material in its bottles and cans by 2030.
The brand’s transition to 100% recycled plastic is projected to save more than 20 million pounds of new plastic, compared to 2019, and cut more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions (creating bottles from recycled plastic uses less energy than virgin PET) in 2023 alone.
In October, a report claimed that the Coca-Cola Company’s pledge to collect one bottle for every one sold is not having a big impact on its plastic waste. The company is being called out for having contributed more plastic pollution globally than its two closest competitors combined, according to a Break Free From Plastic report. The global Brand Audit says it found more than 20,000 discarded Coca-Cola branded products and claims the company has outdistanced other polluters in similar ways since 2019.
