Coca-Cola announced the launch of bottles made from 100% plant-based plastic

We're seeing some promising advances in the world of plant-based plastics, not just from research groups at the forefront of materials science, but also from suppliers of traditional petroleum-based plastics like Lego and PepsiCo. Coca-Cola's latest move in the field recently brought its first-ever bottle made 100 percent of plant-based plastics, and the company says the technology it produces is ready to scale up.

More than a decade after the company first launched the so-called "PlantBottle," the newly launched plant bottles are made of recyclable PET plastic, which is made from 30 percent plant-based material. The other 70 percent of the material is made from oil-based terephthalic acid (PTA), which is part of the plant bottle the company has been grappling with.

It is understood that the company used a technology developed by the plant plastics company Vient to develop sugar in corn into a hydrocarbon called paraxylene (bPX), which in turn is converted into a plant-based terephthalic acid (bPTA). It is worth noting that, as we have seen in ethanol production, the use of arable land for industrial crops has its own environmental impact, although Coca-Cola says the process is suitable for the flexibility of raw materials.

The other 30 percent is made from sugars that are converted directly into monoglycools (MEGs) through a breakthrough process that the company says can be adapted to use hardwood raw materials from sawmills or other wood industrial waste.

Dana Breed, Global Director of Research and Development at Coca-Cola Packaging and Sustainability, said: "The inherent challenge with bioethanol is that you're competing with fuel. We need a next-generation MEG solution to address this challenge, as well as a solution that can use second-generation feedstocks, like forestry waste or agricultural by-products. Our goal at plant-based PET is to minimize our carbon footprint using surplus produce, so the commercial technology portfolio brought by the partners is the ideal combination with this strategy. ”

Coca-Cola said the technology is ready for commercialization, and it plans to eliminate oil-based virgin PET in plastic bottles in Europe and Japan by 2030 in favor of recycled or renewable materials. As a first step, it has produced a limited edition of 900 plant bottle prototypes.

Nancy Quan, Coca-Cola's Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, said: "We are taking significant steps to reduce the use of 'virgin' oil-based plastics as we work towards a circular economy and support our shared goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. We believe that plant-based plastics play a key role in our future entire PET portfolio, supporting our goal of reducing our carbon footprint to reduce our reliance on 'virgin' fossil fuels and facilitating PET collection to support the circular economy. ”