Topline
Coca-Cola will discontinue Sprite’s iconic bottles made of green plastic next week, a move the company says will make the soda bottles easier to recycle, as government officials pressure food and beverage companies to cut back on plastic waste.
After six decades, Sprite’s iconic green bottles will be replaced with a clear–and less … [+]
Key Facts
Starting Monday, Sprite will no longer be sold in green plastic bottles in North America, shifting to clear packaging in order to “increase the material’s likelihood of being remade into new beverage bottles”, Coca-Cola said in a statement Wednesday.
The plastic typically used to make soft drink bottles—known as polyethylene terephthalate, or PET—can be recycled regardless of its color, but additives like color significantly complicate the conversion process.
Pigments in colored plastics may contaminate the recycling stream, which is why they have to be separated from clear materials that are later recycled into food-grade PET, Coca-Cola explained.
Instead of being recycled into new bottles, green plastics that enter the recycling stream are therefore often turned into single-use items like clothing, according to the company.
Clear PET bottles, on the other hand, can be more easily converted into new bottles when recycled, which helps “drive a circular economy for plastic,” Julian Ochoa, CEO of Coca-Cola’s recycling partner R3CYCLE, said in the statement.
Surprising Fact
In most European and many South-East Asian countries, the Sprite bottle has been clear for years.
Key Background
Coca-Cola has faced longstanding criticism for contributing to the planet’s increasingly severe plastic waste problem. States and countries are increasingly banning or sharply limiting single-use plastic, posing a major challenge for many food and beverage companies. The European Union has banned several single-use plastic items–among them straws, cutlery, and food containers–and plans to require all PET bottles to contain at least 25% recyclable plastic by 2025. In the U.S., which generates more plastic trash than any other country, California last month became the first state to force manufacturers of single-use items to reduce plastics in their products by 10% in the next five years and 25% in the next decade. Seven other states so far have banned single-use plastic bags, but when compared internationally, the U.S. continues to lag behind in anti-plastic legislation.
What To Watch For
Coca-Cola announced its other green-packaged drinks–Fresca, Seagram’s and Mello Yello–will shift to clear plastic in the coming months as well, and that the majority of its water brand Dasani’s bottles will be made of 100% recyclable plastic, starting this summer.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisarennau/2022/07/28/coca-cola-phasing-out-green-sprite-bottles-over-environmental-concerns-heres-why/