Firm plans to begin rolling out 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles for select Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta and Dasani water brands in coming months
Coca-Cola has this week announced a host of product innovations across its portfolio of soft drinks aimed at cutting down on plastic pollution, in a move it estimates will reduce the use of virgin plastic in its bottles by more than a fifth.
The Coca-Cola Company said it would begin manufacturing a selection of bottles across its drinks portfolio in the US from 100 per cent recycled plastic (rPET) material in the coming months - excluding bottle caps and labels - with the new packaging to be deployed for its 20oz Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Dasani water, and Smartwater products.
Moreover, the firm has announced a new 13.2oz 'sip-sized bottle' made from 100 per cent recycled material, which it plans to initially launch in selected US regions across all Coca-Cola trademark and Fanta brands from this month.
And it said Sprite would soon also be sold in clear bottles in an effort to ease recycling processes, as part of a commitment to shift all Sprite packaging to clear bottles by the end of next year.
Overall, Coca-Cola said the new portfolio-wide efforts in the US would help drive down its use of virgin plastic by 20 per cent compared to 2018, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 10,000 metric tonnes each year, or the equivalent to taking more than 2,000 cars off the road.
"The world has a plastic waste problem," the company admitted in a statement. "In fact, plastic waste is among the top environmental concerns globally. That is why in 2018, the Coca Cola Company set ambitious global goals to collect and recycle the equivalent of a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030, to make 100 per cent of our packaging recyclable by 2025 and to use 50 per cent recycled material in our bottles and cans by 2030."
The announcement came as consumer goods firm SC Johnson today announced all of its Mr Muscle-branded cleaning product trigger bottles are now made using 100 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic.
The move forms part of the company's goal to triple the amount of post-consumer recycled plastic content in packaging across its product lines by 2025. As of today, the firm has reached 14 per cent, up from six per cent in 2019, it said.
As part of its membership of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, an initiative led by NGO the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with the UN, SC Johnson has also committed to ensuring 100 per cent of its plastic packaging is recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. At present, the firm said around 62 per cent of its products currently made that grade.
The company said the new Mr Muscle bottles were "a reflection of how SC Johnson is accelerating its progress to tackle the plastic pollution crisis".