Soft drink industry giant Coca-Cola is changing their iconic 60-year-old green Sprite bottles to clear plastic.
The company's regional manager told 1News they are ditching the green bottles in an attempt to improve sustainability.
Coca-Cola's Julie O’Toole says clear bottles are easier to recycle into new bottles.
"While green PET [polyethylene terephthalate] plastic is recyclable, it’s usually converted into single-use items like clothing and carpet that cannot be recycled again.
"The shift from green to clear plastic Sprite bottles will help increase these bottles’ likelihood of being remade into new bottles."
O'Toole said the change in New Zealand will affect all pack sizes of Sprite Classic bottles in PET plastic packaging.
"Sprite No Sugar (which is already in a clear plastic bottle) will now sport a new-look black logo and name, Sprite Zero Sugar, to align it with Coca-Cola’s Zero Sugar range."
The change is expected to be complete in Aotearoa by June this year as retailers sell existing stock.
What do the experts think?
Waste minimisation expert Jeff Seadon says times have moved on, and when PET plastic is recycled into carpet and clothing it isn't necessarily single use.
Speaking to 1News, Seadon said: "We already have carpets that have been recyclable for many years and this is synthetic carpets and Interface is an example of that.
"It can be completely recycled, it's just a matter of having the infrastructure to do that.
"To call them single-use, it makes it sound like it's a plastic bag they're dealing with and they're disposed as soon as you get it."
He said clothes and textiles generally have around 120 uses in them.
"So it's not quite as bad as they seem in terms of the recyclability and carpets, they last 20-25 years so you get a lot of use out of that fibre.
Seadon says overall, a company's move from green to clear plastic is positive.
"That is a step in the right direction but there is quite a bit of waste generated by big companies.
"They should be looking at doing things more efficiently for example light-weighting the bottles, why are they so heavy, yes I know they're under pressure but are they at the optimum thickness or at the minimum thickness in order to use the least amount of materials."
He said another difficulty with soft drink packaging is the labels and bottle caps which are different plastics.
He said if companies want to make recycling easier, they should make the bottles, labels, and caps all the same material.
"This is about getting down to the idea of moving up the waste management hierarchy.
"With that, they're at recycling which is really you know, one step above recovery so yes it's nice but looking at the idea of reducing things, they should look to redesign."
Seadon added that these types of decisions from large organisations would come from several conversations between the marketing and advertising departments.
"Because suddenly they're moving from their iconic green bottle through to a clear plastic, so they would've had to weigh up whether the change in branding and imaging was detrimental compared to the change in the perceived environmental impacts."
"They want to be seen to be moving towards more sustainable products and more suitability in their company, but at the same time you've got the other push of if you change it, how will people react."
SHARE ME