Coca-Cola envisions that its 100% of its packaging will be globally recyclable by 2025.
Speaking with Design Week, Coca-Cola global vice president of design Rapha Abreu said the company also plans reduce its use of virgin plastic by a cumulative three million metric tonnes, instead opting for recycled and plant-based materials.
By 2030, Abreu says that Coca-Cola will make “at least 50%” of its packaging from recycled materials, while 25% of beverages sold worldwide will have reusable or refillable packaging.
While some Coca-Cola product packaging already is made up of “around 30%” bioplastics, Abreu said the company is currently working on “a prototype made of 100% bioplastic materials.”
Subscribe to Sustainability Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest sustainability news sent straight to your inbox everyday
After developing its bioplastic technology, a couple of years ago, Coca-Cola shared the IP with other industries.
A company statement said: “By opening up the intellectual property of PlantBottle to competing companies, it will allow our industry to reduce the carbon footprint of packaging and help to drive a circular economy not based on fossil fuels.
“We also hope that by encouraging more use of PlantBottle packaging, demand for it will grow and its price will fall,” the statement added.
Since sharing the IP, the bioplastics packaging has been adopted by several companies, including Heinz.
“In order to do this right, we need to hold hands as a category, as an industry and even with other industries and help each other to make the change that we want to see,” said Abreu.
Although there was hesitation when bioplastics first came into use, Abreu said it’s been “interesting to see how the industry and the standards have evolved”.
Packaging made from 100% recycled PET “was not super clear” and had a more “pigmented feel” than virgin plastic bottles, said Abreu, raising concerns that consumers would perceive the material as “unclean”.
Abreu believes that now, “the world has evolved and no one even pays attention to that anymore”. He also reveals that Coca-Cola are exploring the use of “bottles made of harvested ocean plastic”.
