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Two years ago in 2009, Coca-Cola first introduced the PlantBottle, a beverage bottle made from up to 30% plant-based materials and 100% recyclable. Once again, Coca-Cola’s old friend- Pepsi, has beaten it by revealing the 100% plant-based bottle. It will be the world’s first petroleum-free plastic bottle when Pepsi launch it to reduce its carbon footprint in 2012.
Image link: http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-03/60154792.jpg
Pepsi this week just announced it has figured out how to use switch grass, pine bark and corn husks to make 100％ recyclable and 100% plant-based bottle. The PlantBottle will have the same molecular structure and look indifferent from the normal beverage bottles. Even though Coca-Cola already has 2.5 billion of its 30% plant-based bottles on the market, while Pepsi would not begin pilot production of its new bottle until 2012, the release of this more environmental-friendly bottle will hurt Coca-Cola for sure.
Go-green is, and has always been one of the most popular, as well as most important social trends in today’s markets. Environmentalists have been critical of petroleum-based plastic because of their high carbon emissions and for being slow to biodegrade.Companies are working hard on how to make it sustainable in the market. Sustainability is a major topic for R & D departments in most of companies. With sustainability added to it, the company’s brand has more value.
Obviously Pepsi and Coke, these two leading companies in beverage industry, have spend tremendous amount of time and money on competing with each other. There is no announcement about rising drinks’ prices because of the use of 100% plant-based bottle, so for consumers, there are no harms to get a more eco-friendly beverage, right?
Work Cited: http://www.fastcompany.com/1739029/pepsico-trumps-cokes-plantbottle-with-100-plant-based-bottle