Technological watch

Water brand Dasani is poised to introduce a string of sustainable packaging innovations in support of The Coca-Cola Company’s global “World Without Waste” goal, with which the company aims to make its bottles and cans with an average of 50 percent recycled material by 2030.

Updates to the brand’s packaging line-up are designed to reduce plastic waste and increase the use of recycled and renewable materials in the United States, while ensuring that all DASANI bottles continue to be fully recyclable. New innovations include:

• The debut of HybridBottle, The Coca-Cola Company’s first package in the United States to be made with a mix of up to 50 percent plant-based renewable and recycled PET material (PlantBottle and recycled PET plastic). This innovation builds on the company’s decade of success with PlantBottle by adding recycled content alongside plant-based material to reduce the amount of virgin PET plastic used in the bottle (available nationally in 20-ounce bottles in mid-2020).
• The expansion of package-less Dasani PureFill water dispensers with the addition of up to 100 PureFill units across the country beginning in fall 2019. The additional units are an evolution of the successful Coca-Cola Freestyle platform, garnering more efficiencies and scale than the previous test version of PureFill by leveraging the proprietary Coca-Cola Freestyle technology.
• The introduction of new aluminum cans, launching locally in the north-eastern United States this fall and expanding to other regions in 2020, and new aluminum bottles (available in mid-2020).
• Continued “light-weighting” across the Dasani package portfolio to support overall efforts to reduce the amount of virgin PET plastic procured by the Coca-Cola system.
• The addition of “How2Recycle” labels to all Dasani packages to help educate and encourage consumers to recycle after use, rolling out starting this fall.

The initiative is ‘rooted in providing sustainable options for our consumers’, said Lauren King, brand director, Dasani. “Over the last decade we’ve been on a journey to make Dasani more sustainable through new package design and innovation, and we are now accelerating these efforts in support our company’s ambitious goals to significantly reduce packaging waste around the world by 2030. While there is no single solution to the problem of plastic waste, the additional package and package-less options we are rolling out today mark an important next step in our effort to provide even more sustainable solutions at scale.”

The water brand has been at the forefront of sustainable innovation since 2009 with the launch of the first fully recyclable bottle made partially from plants (PlantBottle). In 2018, the brand continued its sustainability journey by becoming the first major water brand to debut a package-less water dispensing unit with Dasani PureFill. Earlier this year, The Coca-Cola Company expanded access to the PlantBottle IP to encourage industry-wide adoption of PlantBottle.

“Designing our packages to reduce the amount of raw materials used and incorporating recycled and renewable content in our bottles to help drive a circular economy for our packaging is an important part of our commitment to doing business the right way,” said Sneha Shah, Group Director, Packaging Innovation, Coca-Cola North America. “We are working diligently to continually reduce our overall environmental footprint through smarter package design, procurement of recycled and renewable materials while continuing to deliver exceptional consumer experiences.”

Dasani’s actions focus on testing and piloting multiple ways to deliver products that fit consumers’ preferences and behaviors as they seek more sustainable solutions in their everyday lives. Dasani currently plans to remove the equivalent of 1 billion virgin PET bottles from its U.S. supply chain in the next five years and will continue to look to expand these efforts.

The Coca-Cola Company’s World Without Waste initiative, launched in 2018, aims to collect and recycle the equivalent of a bottle or can for each one sold by 2030; to significantly increase the amount of recycled materials used in its products to an average of 50 percent by 2030; and to make all of its packaging recyclable by 2025. To do this, Coca-Cola is redesigning and rethinking its packaging, and working to help increase recycling collection rates by simplifying the recycling ecosystem and inspiring consumers by illustrating the potential good that can be created from a recycled bottle or cans.

https://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/world-without-waste