Soft drink multinational Coca-Cola (Atlanta, Georgia / USA; www.coca-colacompany.com) has unveiled new bottles made from 100% plant-based plastics (“PlantPET”). The bottle comes more than a decade after the debut of the “Plant Bottle”, which was made of 30% plant-based material. According to the company, the new PlantPET bottles, of which 900 were initially produced, can be collected in existing recycling infrastructures and sent for recovery.

In the new prototype, both PET ingredients – monoethylene glycol (MEG) and terephthalic acid (PTA) – are now produced from plant-based raw materials. The technology for producing bio-MEG was jointly developed by Coca-Cola and technology partner Changchun Meihe Science & Technology (Changchun, Jilin / China) and is now being scaled up to commercial quantities by UPM Biochemicals (Helsinki / Finland; www.upmbiochemicals.com). The material is based on a sugar source, eliminating the ethanol production step as part of the conversion process. This makes the procedure simpler and allows greater flexibility in the choice of feedstock, according to the company.

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UPM is currently building a large-scale plant in Leuna / Germany to convert certified, sustainably sourced hardwood raw materials from sawmills and other wood industry side streams into bio-MEG (see Plasteurope.com of 06.11.2020). The biorefinery is scheduled to start production in 2023 with a capacity of 220,000 t/y. Bio-PTA, also with bio-based PX as a precursor, will also be obtained from plant-based feedstocks for the new prototype. However, a company spokesperson declined to provide details about possible sources to Plasteurope.com.

Coca-Cola said it wants to use about 3m t less crude-oil-based plastics by 2025. In Europe and Japan, the company, together with its bottlers, aims to completely eliminate the use of petroleum-based primary PET in plastic bottles by 2030.