Dasani makes a bigger splash in bottled water sustainability

23 / 08 / 2019

• Companies
• CSR
• Sustainable Development

Through a quintet of coordinated sustainability initiatives, the Coca-Cola Company (Atlanta) is aggressively aligning the Dasani water brand with the company’s global “World Without Waste” goal to make packaging with 50% recycled material by 2030.

It’s the largest sustainability initiative in the history of the Dasani brand, according to Lauren King, brand director, Dasani.

“It’s rooted in providing sustainable options for our consumers, while doubling down on our commitment to minimize our impact on the environment. 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, these additional package and package-less options mark an important next step in our effort to provide even more sustainable solutions at scale.”

The day of the announcement in mid-August PlasticsToday interviewed Sneha Shah, group director, packaging innovation, Coca-Cola North America, who reveals the reasoning and details for the program, which comprises five parallel initiatives involving two plastics-centered developments that include innovation in plastic bottles made from renewable resources and an emphasis on bottle weight reductions.

Unveiled was the new HybridBottle, which features a mix of up to 50% plant-based renewable (PlantBottle) and recycled PET (rPET); specifically, the blend will be about 30% recycled (rPET) content and 20% renewable (PlantBottle) content with the 50% virgin PET. It is expected to launch nationally in mid-2020 as a 20-oz bottle.

Coca-Cola’s current sustainably enhanced benchmark standard, the PlantBottle, is a blend of 30% renewable materials including sugarcane and corn and 70% virgin PET.

Shah identified three key considerations for this development that will remove an incrementally larger amount of virgin material from the brand’s portfolio:

High-quality material. Requirements include that it being sourced from food-grade material with proper coloring/clarity.

Recycled content. Coca-Cola is adding this year six new suppliers of rPET who use mechanical processing specifically for the HybridBottle. This will ensure a steady supply of consistent quality of food-grade material; Shah declined to identify them by name.

Packaging performance with scalability that extends through the entire supply chain through to the consumer experience.

“This is going to accelerate our use of recyclable and renewable resources and is an industry-leading solution for the market in North America,” Shah states.

In related news from early 2019, the company made the PlantBottle technology available to all interested companies, including competitors. Currently, only a limited number of suppliers produce the type of biomaterial used to make PlantBottle resin, which adds complexity and cost to the production process. By encouraging more use of bioPET by companies both inside and outside the beverage industry, Coca-Cola expects to increase demand and drive down pricing.

A second component of the 5-prong sustainability plan is accelerated lightweighting across the Dasani portfolio.

The company is leveraging new technologies in taking a closer look at packaging design to reduce weight package by package and gram by gram.

“It’s part of our new smart design process where we are challenging to maintain or evolve the performance aspects and maintain beverage quality as part of a holistic package system,” Shah explains. “We don’t want to take so much weight out that we have to add somewhere else instead as balance perspective as to what makes sense for that particular package.”

“The closure and entire neck finish contribute to bottle design and lightweighting,” says Shah, “but really everything affects the total weight so we look at the whole system of bottle, closure, label, secondary packaging—with the closure an enabler of the entire lightweighting program.”

Lightweighting plans will first focus on the 500mL bottle before turning to other sizes, starting with the 20oz size, she says.

We asked her about KHS’ “Factor 100” bottle that brings the weight of a 500mL bottle down to an incredible five grams, which PlasticsToday covered in an NPE report published June 2018.

“That’s an incredible development,” agrees Shah. “We have connected with KHS and all OEM suppliers of bottle manufacturing systems—we’re supportive of all their work in using new technology for lightweighting.”

Read more about the Factor 100 technology in a June 2018 report published by PlasticsToday.

As an aside and because we were speaking with the company’s North American lead in packaging innovation, PlasticsToday asked her about KHS’s Plasmax technology that coats small 250- or 300-mL bottles internally with a silicon oxide (SiOx) “glass” barrier layer, a technology that was commercialized recently by Coca-Cola Canada.

Plasmax coating tech is something we took a leadership role in,” Shah emphasizes. “In fact, we launched that type of package in Asia four or five years ago and are now using it in Canada as an enabling technology that’s part of our ‘toolkit’. While that specific bottle is not in the U.S. market today, the technology provides excellent shelf life characteristics to the bottle and reduces overall weight, which is sometimes a problem in smaller packages.”

PlasticsToday asked if there was specific range of bottle sizes where the method is technically and economically optimized?

“The tech itself might have some limitations, but we would assess using it case by case looking at the design of the package, the environment it will be in and the shelf life that’s needed…there are a lot of lot of dimensions to consider,” Shah responds. “However, overall there’s a strong case for the technology because of the amount of material you’re able to reduce in the bottle.”

According to a June 2019 report in PlasticsToday, Coca-Cola Canada was able to achieve a 30% weight reduction while blowmolding both size bottles from the same 14-gram preform.

The most dramatic of the three non-plastics plans announced as part of the 5-element program was for Dasani still water’s move into not only aluminum cans, but aluminum bottles, too. Of course, Coca-Cola has a lengthy history in aluminum cans for carbonated soft drinks and sparkling waters (including Dasani), teas and lemonade, but this is a first for the company’s still water when Dasani will debut in a 16oz can later this year to be followed by a 12oz can. Both cans will be introduced into foodservice outlets in the Northeast in targeting “certain drinking occasions where customers have higher preference to enjoy or choose that aluminum package,” Shah says.

In 2020, those will be joined by resealable aluminum bottles to bring an on-the-go, portable multiple consumption format to the brand.

PlasticsToday asked if this move into metal was reactionary to the backlash against plastics, particularly bottled waters.

Instead, she positions it as a move to leverage opportunities in aluminum packaging for consumers and for the brand with an environmental angle as well.

“This meets changing consumer preferences in creating a format choice also paired with consumer recycling behavior,” Shah explains. “Both PET and aluminum have value in the recycling market, and aluminum’s higher recycling rate helps with our overall World Without Waste goals. We want to inspire consumer behavior to recycle to help get the entire value chain working towards that goal as part of a circular economy—aluminum plays a key role in that bigger picture.”

While the move into aluminum loses the losing literal package transparency that’s appealing to some consumers, Sha expects a net gain in customers because aluminum represents “a little more of a premium drinking experience,” Shah notes, that will appeal to a different consumer segment than PET bottles.

The addition of cans will impact production operations. “We’re considering modifications to our lines and capabilities at multiple plants to support a national launch starting in the Northeast in late 2019.”

Rolling out to all Dasani packaging starting this fall, How2Recycle labels will educate and encourage consumers to recycle after use.

“We believe this is a great step forward in consumer education—consistent messaging can go a long way in increasing the amount of recycling behavior we see,” says Shah. “Our package itself is an important piece of real estate and a key touchpoint with consumers. While consumers may be familiar with recycling for aluminum and PET, we still want to progress towards more. Our goal is to collect an equivalent of every package we put into the market.”