Coca-Cola shifting to rPET for sparkling beverage bottles in Canada

Photo Credit: CNW Group/The Coca‑Cola Company

In what’s being called an industry first, beverage giant Coca-Cola Co. has announced that all its 500 mL sparkling beverage bottles in Canada will be made with 100 per cent recycled PET (rPET) plastic – excluding caps and labels – by early 2024.

This marks the first time 500mL sparkling beverages will be sold in bottles made from 100 per cent recycled plastic in Canada, company officials said.

“With this transition, no virgin PET plastic will be used for our sparkling 500mL bottles under normal circumstances going forward in Canada,” said Kurt Ritter, vice president and general manager of sustainability for Coca-Cola North America. “We hope that transitioning our 500mL sparkling portfolio to 100 per cent recycled plastic will increase the amount of high-quality, food-grade, recycled plastic available in Canada and, ultimately, enable us to offer more of our brands in this sustainable format.”

The transition is expected to be complete by February 2024, and will include Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Sprite, Sprite Zero Sugar, Fanta, Fresca, Coca-Cola Cherry, Coca-Cola Cherry Zero Sugar, Barq’s, Barq’s Cherry Bite, and AHA.

The shift – which supports the company’s goals of using at least 50 per cent recycled content in its packaging by 2030 and reducing the use of virgin plastic – is projected to save 7.6 million pounds of new plastic in 2024 alone, as well as reduce nearly 7,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions annually, company officials said.

In an awareness-building campaign, all of the 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles will feature “Recycle Me Again” messaging. The new bottles will be produced locally at Coke Canada Bottling’s manufacturing plants in Brampton, Ont., Calgary, Lachine, Que., and Richmond, B.C.