The Coca-Cola Company announced today that beverages in its innovative PlantBottle™ packaging are beginning to arrive on store shelves in select markets throughout the world, initiating the Company’s journey toward a goal of producing 2 billion of the special PET plastic bottles by the end of 2010. PlantBottle PET plastic bottles are made partially from plants, which reduces the Company’s dependence on a non-renewable resource – petroleum. Other benefits are that it is 100 percent recyclable, and preliminary research indicates that from the growing of the plant materials through to the production of the resin, the carbon footprint for the PlantBottle packaging is smaller than for bottles made with traditional PET. (Related Story: Is the future in plastics without the oil?)
PlantBottle packaging is currently made through a process that turns sugar cane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production, into a key component for PET plastic. The sugar cane being used comes from predominantly rain-fed crops that were processed into ethanol, not refined sugar.”Coca-Cola is currently sourcing raw materials for its PlantBottle from suppliers in Brazil, where third parties have verified that best-in-class agricultural practices are the norm,” said Dr. Jason Clay, Senior Vice President of Market Transformation for WWF. “Preserving natural resources through sustainable agriculture is essential for businesses like Coca-Cola as they search for ways to alleviate environmental challenges.”
Filed under: Biofuels, Climate Change, Enviroment, Ethanol, Food vs. Fuel, Sugarcane, Sustainability, Water | Tagged: Biofuels, Bioplastics, Coca-Cola, Coke, PlantBlottle, Plastics, Sugarcane, Sustainability, Water
