We Believe In A Better Shared Future
Packaging Solutions
We believe developing a circular economy is the most impactful path to address the environmental issues created by packaging. Our company offers beverages in a variety of packaging formats including aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles. Each option can play a role in helping reduce packaging waste and emissions. We are focusing efforts to use more recycled material in our primary packaging and supporting collection rates, both of which require enabling policies and the growth of collection infrastructure.
Our packaging solutions strategy touches our entire packaging lifecycle and focuses on the following goals to be achieved by 2035:
Design: Use 35% to 40% recycled material in our primary packaging (plastic, glass, and aluminum), including increasing recycled plastic use to 30% to 35% globally
Partner to Collect: Help ensure the collection of 70% to 75% of the equivalent number of bottles and cans we sell annually
Learn more about Coca-Cola’s Packaging Solutions.
Why Recycle?
Bottles made from 100% recycled PET (rPET) are important because they reduce the use of new plastic, decrease carbon emissions, and accelerate progress towards our environmental goals.
100% recycled PET bottles create and sustain a circular economy for PET bottles through recycling efforts.
Plastic, especially PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate), is among the most highly valued recyclable materials because it can be remade to make new bottles, over and over again.
We are driving a circular economy for plastics by creating demand for recycled content as well as investing in community recycling programs and infrastructure across the northeast through our trade associations.
The circular economy is critical to ensuring that plastic waste stays out of the environment and is instead recycled and reused.
Using recycled PET also reduces energy and greenhouse gas emissions.
The process of making a PET bottle with recycled PET material requires less energy and emits fewer greenhouse gases than making a bottle using virgin petroleum-based sources.
For every pound of recycled plastic material used (in lieu of new PET), greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 65%.
No new plastic (PET) is used in the creation of bottles made from 100% recycled plastic – all thanks to consumers who recycle, thus contributing to the circular economy of plastic and reducing waste.
Sustainable Packaging
20oz rPET: We are proud to offer several of our best-selling 20oz beverages in bottles made from 100% recycled plastic (also known as rPET):
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola Zero Sugar
Diet Coke
Cherry Coke
Cherry Coke Zero Sugar
Vanilla Coke
Caffeine Free Diet Coke
Orange Cream
Orange Cream Zero Sugar
Dasani Water (in both 20oz and 1 liter bottles)
Transition to clear plastic: In 2022, we converted Sprite, Fresca, and Mello Yello bottles from green to clear plastic in order to make the bottles easier to recycle and be made into new ones. Removing green colorant from PET packaging supports a more efficient circular economy through easier collection and recycling by reducing risk of color contamination, increasing yield for clear rPET production, and improving material quality at recycling facilities.
Bottle Light Weighting: We are always looking for ways to reduce our use of virgin plastic material. We have implemented a number of bottle light weighting initiatives, which reduces the amount of PET used to produce bottles, including our 20oz soft drink and 16.9oz Dasani Water bottles.
