Coca-Cola Introduces the PlantBottle

Plastic bottles have gotten a lot of bad press over the last few years, and with good reason. Plastic takes ages to break down, so filling up our landfills and littering our beaches with these containers is not a good idea. The Coca-Cola Company, always quick to grab an opportunity for good press, is stepping into the fray with a new invention, the PlantBottle.

A press release states that the company aims to produce 2 billion of the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles made in part from plants by the end of next year. Using plant matter in production of bottles reduces Coca-Cola's reliance on petroleum, the material used in the majority of plastic bottles. Additionally, the bottles are totally recyclable, and initial research points to another benefit: the carbon footprint of producing a PlantBottle is smaller than for traditional PET bottles.

Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, sees this development as a great advancement for the industry. "Today, we are taking a major step along our sustainable packaging journey as The Coca-Cola Company becomes the first-to-market with a recyclable PET plastic bottle made partially from plants," he said. "From Coke brands in Copenhagen to DASANI water in the Western United States, we are starting to roll out the first generation of the bottle of the future."

Regardless of what you think of the bottles themselves, you've gotta love it when the CEO of Coke uses the phrase "sustainable packaging journey." Welcome to our brave, new, polluted world.

Photo courtesy of Dominic's pics, via Flickr