Coca Cola has announced that it has launched its Plant-Bottle in South Africa. At the same time, Coca Cola is opening a new plant in the country, located in Heidelberg, southeast of Johannesburg which will fill Coca Cola's Valpré Spring water using the recyclable packaging. The 100% recyclable PlantBottle packaging is currently made by converting sugarcane into monoethylene glycol (MEG), which represents 30% of the total composition of the PET plastic by weight. In a statement, Coca Cola said that it was working with its partners to crack the code on plant-based purified terephthalic acid (PTA), which accounts for the other 70% of PET. The news comes as Pepsi also announced that it is moving away from oil-based plastics to plant-based polymers.
