Coca-Cola is ranked the world’s number one plastic polluter by the charity ‘Break Free from Plastic’ in its annual survey. Now to reduce its carbon footprint, the company is introducing its first-ever paper bottles, that are environment-friendly and sustainable.
Coca-Cola has also pledged to collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one it sells by 2030. Not only that company is also planning to reduce its use of virgin packaging materials and only use packaging materials that are 100% recyclable.
Coca-Cola has been working with partner Paboco to explore the concept of a paper bottle. It is planning to test paper bottles in Europe this summer. The company is now testing if these will work in the real world. So, to get customer’s reaction the company has offered, 2,000 bottles.
Stijn Franssen, EMEA R&D Packaging Innovation Manager at Coca‑Cola, said, “Our vision is to create a paper bottle that can be recycled like any other type of paper, and this prototype is the first step on the way to achieving this. A paper bottle opens up a whole new world of packaging possibilities, and we are convinced that paper packaging has a role to play in the future,”
But the bottle is not entirely made of paper. The paper bottle has a thin lining of plastic underneath the porous paper. This lining prevents the paper from soaking up the carbonated-drink. Although having a plastic lining, the bottle is 100 percent recyclable after one use.
” The plastic we use is made from 100% recycled plastic that can be recycled again after use. But our vision is to create a paper bottle that can be recycled like any paper. The next step is to find a solution to create a bottle without the plastic liner,” Stijn explained.
