The Coca-Cola Company is introducing newly designed, lighter PET bottles across its range of sparkling beverages in the U.S. and Canada, demonstrating a broader dedication to fostering a circular economy for its packaging.
For the first time in a decade, the 12-, 16.9-, and 20-ounce bottles of Coca-Cola, Sprite, and Fanta, alongside Minute Maid Refreshments and Minute Maid Aguas Frescas, showcase fresh designs that demand reduced raw materials for manufacturing.
Alejandro Santamaria, Senior Director for Global Packaging Development and Innovation, stated, “We’ve been continuously refining the weight of our bottles, gradually decreasing from 27 to 21 grams over the past decade. However, our previous designs had reached their minimum weight. Our recent advancements in modeling technology have enabled us to further reduce the weight of our bottles to 18.5 grams, marking a significant stride in minimizing material usage while maintaining the durability, functionality, and, crucially, the quality and taste integrity of our beverages.”
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PET bottles are crafted by injecting heated liquid resin into tube-shaped “preforms,” which are subsequently expanded into bottle molds to achieve their desired final shape.
Santamaria elaborates, emphasizing the importance of identifying the optimal preform design and bottle shape features to enable lightweighting without sacrificing quality. He highlights that these designs are applicable to both virgin and 100% recycled plastic bottles (excluding cap and label). He underscores the significance of this process, particularly for sparkling beverages, where maintaining precise carbonation levels upon opening is crucial to preserving taste.
The new bottles, slated for gradual introduction across the United States and Canada in 2024, promise significant sustainability benefits for The Coca-Cola Company and its bottling partners. This transition is forecasted to slash the use of new plastic by roughly 800 million bottles in 2025 compared to 2024. Additionally, the shift in packaging is estimated to curtail carbon emissions in 2025 by an amount equivalent to removing over 17,000 cars from the road for one year compared to 2024.
This initiative aligns with the company’s World Without Waste objectives, aiming to ensure that all packaging is recyclable by 2025, incorporate 50% recycled content by 2030, achieve a one-to-one collection ratio of bottles or cans for each one produced by 2030, and diminish the use of virgin plastic sourced from nonrenewable origins. These collective efforts foster a circular economy for packaging materials, thereby curtailing waste and emissions.
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Currently, testing is in progress to explore the feasibility of implementing the new lightweight designs for larger multi-serve 2-liter and 24-oz. PET bottles. Moreover, a considerable portion of the Coca-Cola North America’s range of still beverages, encompassing sports drinks, enhanced waters, and teas, will shift from hot fill to aseptic processing. This transition involves filling beverages into pre-sterilized containers, resulting in reduced plastic usage and energy consumption.
Santamaria concluded, “We deliberately began with our top-selling SKUs, and we are leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to minimize the amount of PET material used per package.”