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Topics: Food and Drink, US News
Claire Reid
Topics: Food and Drink, US News
After more than 60 years, Sprite is ditching its green bottles in favour of clear ones to become… erm, more green.
Coca-Cola has announced that beginning next month, Sprite will be sold in clear plastic bottles, rather than its well-known green ones, because they’re easier to recycle.
The soft-drink manufacturer is hoping the switch will mean more of its plastic bottles are recycled and made into new plastic bottles.
In a statement on its site, Coca-Cola explained: “Although green PET is recyclable, the recycled material is more often converted into single-use items like clothing and carpeting that cannot be recycled into new PET bottles. During the sorting process, green and other coloured PET is separated from clear material to avoid discolouring recycled food-grade packaging required to make new PET bottles.”
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Julian Ochoa, CEO, R3CYCLE, which is working with Coca-Cola on its bottle-to-bottle recycling scheme, said: “Taking colours out of bottles improves the quality of the recycled material.
“This transition will help increase availability of food-grade rPET. When recycled, clear PET Sprite bottles can be remade into bottles, helping drive a circular economy for plastic.”
The lids and labels of the bottles will remain a bright shade of green and – in case you were wondering – no changes are being made to the drink inside.
Coca-Cola has said it is committed to using 100 percent recycled plastic for its bottles, excluding caps and labels, and this change will help it reach that goal.
Chris Vallette, Senior Vice President of Technical Innovation and Stewardship, Coca-Cola North America, said the change would make the brand more sustainable.
He said: “Demand for rPET currently exceeds supply, so the first step to scaling up use of 100 percent rPET across our portfolio is building a sustainable pipeline of high-quality material.
“We do this by working with communities to boost PET recycling and collection; collaborating with recycling partners; and, finally, securing rPET to help ensure the material for our bottles is used again and again.”
In the UK, Sprite switched to clear bottles back in 2019 to help sustainability.
Speaking at the time Jon Woods, general manager, Coca-Cola Great Britain, said: “Using more recycled plastic is a critical element of our sustainable packaging strategy, as it reduces the amount of virgin material used in our packs.”
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