Greentech Lead America: In yet another major sustainable
initiative, The Coca-Cola Company has formed partnership with JBF Industries to
further expand production of the plant-based material used in the Company’s
PlantBottle packaging.
The partnership further strengthens the company’s
leadership in bringing renewable, lower-carbon plastics to the marketplace and
move the Company closer to its target of using PlantBottle packaging technology
in all of its plastic bottles by 2020.
PlantBottle package is the first recyclable PET plastic
bottle made partially from plants. Today, Coca-Cola has sold more than 10
billion PlantBottle packages around the world that are less dependent on
petroleum and have a lower carbon impact, said Ronald J. Lewis, vice president,
Procurement & Chief Procurement Officer at The Coca-Cola Company.
Under this partnership, JBF Industries will build the
world’s largest facility to produce bio-glycol – the key ingredient used to
make PlantBottle packaging. The facility, which will be located in Araraquara,
Sao Paulo, Brazil, will produce the ingredient using locally sourced sugarcane
and sugarcane processing waste.
Both materials meet The Coca-Cola Company’s established
sustainability criteria used to identify plant-based ingredients for
PlantBottle packaging. These guiding principles include demonstrating improved
environmental and social performance as well as avoiding negative impacts on
food security.
Construction on the new facility is expected to begin at
the end of this year and last for 24 months. At full capacity, it is estimated
the facility will produce 500,000 metric tons of material per year. The
facility is estimated to remove the equivalent of 690,000 metric tons of carbon
dioxide or the equivalent of consuming more than 1.5 million barrels of oil
each year.
PlantBottle packaging is available in more than 24
countries worldwide and across a wide variety of Coca-Cola products.
In another major sustainability initiative recently
Coca-Cola signed a global clean water partnership with DEKA R&D. The
partnership aims to bring DEKA president Dean Kamen’s “Slingshot”
technology to communities where potable water access is limited.a