Coca-Cola reveals new eco-friendlier bottle overseas

Coca-Cola Great Britain has unveiled a new bottle cap design aimed at reducing waste and curbing litter.

>> Read more trending news

In a news release, the company revealed the new design, which has the caps attached to the bottle, thus making it easier to recycle the entire thing. Coca-Cola Great Britain said customers would start seeing the new bottle caps immediately for 1.5L bottles of Fanta, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar and Diet Coke, with the full line of products for CCGB set to be using the new bottles by early 2024.

Coca-Cola said the hinged bottle design will make sure the cap heads to recycling, rather than the trash where many caps often end up.

“This is a small change that we hope will have a big impact, ensuring that when consumers recycle our bottles, no cap gets left behind,” Jon Woods, general manager for CCBG, said in a statement. “As the world’s biggest drinks company, we recognise that we have a leading role to play in pushing innovation and design to produce more high-quality recycled plastic which can be converted into new bottles.”

Coca-Cola said that it wants to work globally on the world’s plastic problem, and has announced plans to use at least 50% recycled material in its packaging by 2030, and make its packaging 100% recyclable by 2025 as part of its World Without Waste environmental program, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The change is partly a response to a new directive on single-use plastics from the European Union, which requires caps to be attached to some plastic bottles by the end of 2024, CNN reported.

Environmental groups have previously singled out Coca-Cola for its contribution to plastic waste, with the nonprofit Break Free From Plastic naming the company “world’s worst plastic polluter” for the fourth consecutive year last October, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“Whether their plastic caps are tethered or not, the company still produces billions of throwaway plastic bottles every year, harming our environment, our communities and our climate, and impacting our health,” Graham Forbes, global plastics project lead at Greenpeace USA, told CNN. “If they truly want to solve the plastic and climate crisis, Coca-Cola must focus on reducing plastic by doubling its reuse and refill packaging target to 50% by 2030.”

©2022 Cox Media Group