People all over the world love their Coca-Cola, and have for decades. It’s all great, of course, until you realize how big a contributor to the global climate crisis plastic bottles are – but Dutch company Avantium might have a solution.
Companies like Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, and Danone are supporting their efforts to develop a plant-based alternative to plastic bottles.
The new plastic-like material is made from corn, wheat, and beet sugars, and they believe it would entirely decompose within a year in a composter. Even in normal conditions, they would take less than 3 years to disappear.
Avantium’s chief executive, Tom Van Aken, told The Guardian,
“This plastic has very attractive sustainability credentials because it uses no fossil fuels and can be recycled – but would also degrade in nature much faster than normal plastics do.”
No fossil fuels are involved in the manufacturing process, either, which makes this option doubly appealing, especially in a world that seems to be getting more dependent on – and polluted by – plastics, not the opposite.
Myriam Shingleton, Carlsberg’s VP of group development, says they’re hoping the bottles will be available starting in 2023.
“We are pleased with the progress we’ve made on the Green Fiber Bottle so far.
While we are not completely there yet, the two prototypes are an important step toward realizing our ultimate ambition of bringing this breakthrough to market.”
They plan to start off small, but hope to expand quickly once the product is proven in the market.
“Innovation takes time and we will continue to collaborate with leading experts in order to overcome remaining technical challenges, just as we did with our plastic-reducing Snap Pack.”
Here’s hoping that more companies see the value in investing in plastic-reducing innovations like this, and soon.
It might not be too late to save the planet, but we’re definitely getting closer to that mark every single day.