31 May 2009 — Coca Cola wants to show it cares about the environment by introducing a new “eco-friendly” bottle for its Dasani water line. The new bottle which will be introduced later this year would be made from a blend of petroleum-based materials and up to 30% of plant-based materials. Initially these materials will include sugarcane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production. According to Coca Cola, the blend could make the recycling process easier and cheaper, and reduce the time that discarded bottles sit in landfills. Are you impressed? You shouldn’t be…
You’ve probably heard about the problem of plastic contamination in recycling plants. The problem is that some of the new plant-based plastics get recycled as if they were polyethylene terephthalate (PET). But when they mix with the other petroleum-based plastics during the recycling process they end up creating a less stable recycled plastic that is of lower quality, hence lower value in the market.
A good illustration of this problem is the Primo Water Bottle which is made of IngeoTM, 100% corn-based plastic made by Minnesota-based Natureworks. It composts only in high-temperature commercial composting systems. It looks the same as PET plastic, which makes it difficult to distinguish from regular plastics in the recycling mix so it contaminates the quality of PET recycled plastics. Morever, PLA melts at lower temperatures, recyclers say, a nuisance in dryers used to process recycled PET. Therefore, it can only be recycled in recycling facilities that are equipped to deal with it. The company encourages the recycling of the bottles over its composting, but admits that although the technology to adequately recycle IngeoTM plastic used in Primo bottles exists today, it “is not universally accessible.” (http://www.primowater.com/single-serve_faq.php)
So, what Coca Cola is creating is a monster because the two different types of polymers (plant-based and petroleum-based) are actually blended in together making it much less desirable for recycling purposes and impossible to compost, let alone incinerate (unlike 100% PLA plastics, this blend would emit dioxins). So you end up with a bottle that is not biodegradable nor compostable while not being recyclable. Coca Cola was actually doing better for the environment before it tried to be “eco-friendly”. Best would have been to stick to glass. Coke is one of the biggest producers of plastic bottles. Consumers drain about a billion plastic PET bottles every week, with only 18-23% recycled, according to the Container Recycling Institute, a non-profit advocacy group in Washington.
– Chantal
(Sources: “Corn plastic sounds great, but it’s tough to recycle and may foul systems” by Scott Learn, The Oregonian, October 27, 2008; “Coke to release new ‘Earth-friendly’ bio-bottle within days” by Bill Bruce,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 14, 2009)