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Coca-Cola seeks greener bottles
22/07/2015
Coke pushes for development of Bio-MEG
Drinks giant seeks more sustainable drinks bottles
Adam Duckett
COCA-COLA is accelerating the development of a process that uses waste carbon dioxide to make mono-ethylene glycol used in the production of its drinks bottles.
Process developer Liquid Light has revealed little about the agreement other than Coca-Cola’s aim to help speed up development of the technology. Liquid Light’s process uses low-energy catalytic electrochemistry to convert carbon dioxide into what it describes as ‘multi-carbon chemicals’ including propylene and acetic acid.
For example, a bioethanol plant using Liquid Light’s technology could use its waste carbon dioxide to produce bio-MEG, the company explained in a statement.
“Firms with waste carbon dioxide, like ethanol producers, can turn that waste into revenue,” it adds, “and brands that use large amounts of plastics in their packaging can offer a more sustainably-packaged product.”
Coca-Cola could use the bio-MEG in its PET drinks bottles to replace MEG sourced from crude feedstocks. In 2009, the drinks giant introduced a new PET bottle – called the PlantBottle – 30% of which is plant-based plastic. Today, 7% of all bottles shipped are PlantBottles and plans are to increase this to 100% by the close of the decade. Its ultimate goal is to introduce a 100% plant-based bottle, though hasn’t given a target date.
This isn’t the first time that Coca-Cola has taken a direct hand in the development of technology to produce greener packing. In 2012, it announced plans to build a plant producing feedstocks for eco-packaging in Brazil using locally-sourced sugarcane waste.
Liquid Light’s technology is not the first route to bio-MEG, and not the most developed. In 2013, M&G Chemicals began building a production scale bio-MEG plant using enzyme technology and a plant waste feedstock.
