Sprite Ditches Its Iconic Green Plastic Bottles
Sprite is one of the most popular sodas in the world, and it is ditching its iconic green plastic bottle to become more environmentally friendly. This is because it contains green polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which cannot be recycled.
This lowers the effectiveness of the entire recycling system, thus, the Coca-Cola company has opted to remove this iconic color from the bottle.
And Sprite isn’t the only beverage in the Coca-Cola company’s portfolio that will be making this move. Others include Fresca, Seagram’s, and Mello Yello. However, this will occur at a later date as the company is focused on the more popular Sprite beverage.
By switching all bottles to clear PET, it will be possible to recycle them into new bottles, which will help the company reduce plastic waste. This will help it meet the goals of its own World Without Waste Initiative.
Of course, this is just one change the company is making to further its initiative.
Dasani Will Use 100% Recycled Bottles in the US and Canada
Just last week, Dasani, a popular water brand owned by the Coca-Cola company, announced that in the US and Canada, bottles use 100% recycled plastic.
This announcement is expected to prevent 20 million pounds of new plastic from entering the world. As a result, it will also cut 25,000 metric tons of emissions. This is because less energy is required to recycle plastic than to create new plastic from scratch.
Although just to be clear, the pledge only covers the majority of bottles in the US, unlike Canada, which is all.
Another exception is the caps and the labels. The main reason cited by the company is that there are not enough recycled materials available to meet demand. As these are not made with the same material as the bottles.
Thus, as recycling efforts improve, the company can make further changes.
Industry Leaders Will Have the Biggest Impact on Recycling
Without a doubt, the Coca-Cola company is the largest beverage enterprise in the world, and its commitment to reducing plastic waste will have a huge impact.
You see, when companies start using recycled plastic exclusively, it makes that material more valuable. And when the material is more valuable, more effort is put into collecting it, thus, less will be found on the side of the road or in the ocean.
However, as the change to Sprite demonstrates, it’s also a matter of using the correct materials.
If manufacturers use unique or complicated designs, it makes those items more difficult to recycle. And unfortunately, the recycling system is not strong enough to process those items. Thus, they end up in a landfill, or worse.
This doesn’t just apply to plastic bottles. More complicated devices like solar panels are recyclable, but most are not. That’s because these devices are complicated to disassemble, which raises the cost.
The end result is that it is not viable to recycle them, thus, you can find them in a landfill. However, that could change in the future with legislation.
Robert has been following and writing about environmental stories for years at GreenGeeks. He believes that highlighting environmentally friendly practices can help promote change in every household.
