The Sprite bottle will no longer be green, what now?
Abstract
The Coca-Cola Company announced last Wednesday that it will be changing the packaging for its lemon drink Sprite from a green plastic bottle to a clear one. "Taking colors out of bottles improves the quality of the recycled material," Julian Ochoa, CEO of R3CYCLE, a plastic group helping Coca-Cola improve its recycling, said in a statement. The plastic cannot be recycled into new PET bottles according to the company. PET is a strong, clear and 100% recyclable plastic that, when used, can be recycled for other purposes. In a statement, the giant beverage brand said that it will switch to full PET plastic bottles for the water excluding the caps and labels. In 2020, Coca-Cola was ranked as the number one plastic pollution contributing brand in the world according to environmental firm Break Free From Plastic. According to Break Free From Plastic data, 13,834 pieces of discarded plastic bearing Coca-Cola's logos and branding were found around the world in 51 countries.
