Coca-Cola introduces 100% plant-based bottle prototype

The Coca‑Cola Company has partnered with Changchun Meihe Science & Technology and UPM to introduce its first 100% plant-based plastic beverage bottle, excluding the cap and label.

The companies have used a new technology developed by plant-based plastics firm Virent to create PlantBottle, which is made from plant-based paraxylene (bPX) using sugar from corn. To begin, a limited number of around 900 prototype bottles have been manufactured.

Coca-Cola’s chief technical and innovation officer, Nancy Quan, said: “We have been working with technology partners for many years to develop the right technologies to create a bottle with 100% plant-based content – aiming for the lowest possible carbon footprint – and it’s exciting that we have reached a point where these technologies exist and can be scaled by participants in the value chain”.

The newly-released prototype bottle arrives 12 years after Coca-Cola first introduced its PlantBottle as the first recyclable PET plastic bottle made with approximately 30% monoethylene glycol (MEG) from sugarcanes and 70% terephthalic acid (PTA) derived from oil-based sources.

Coca-Cola’s global packaging and sustainability R&D director, Dana Breed, stated: “The inherent challenge with going through bioethanol is that you are competing with fuel. We needed a next-generation MEG solution that addressed this challenge, but also one that could use second-generation feedstock like forestry waste or agricultural byproducts.”

She continued: “Our goal for plant-based PET is to use surplus agricultural products to minimise carbon footprint, so the combination of technologies brought by the partners for commercialisation is an ideal fit with this strategy”.