The two great rivals of

The two great rivals of soft drinks companies Coca Cola and Pepsi, now compete to be the first to sell its carbonated beverage in a plastic bottle that contains no petroleum. As explained a few days ago The New York Times, both brands face this time to see who gives the formula for market before a package made entirely from plants. This is far from Spain, although in 2012 may reach any news related to it to supermarkets. Here, the biggest changes in plastic bottles for food have to do with the use of recycled PET. And do not get on the shelves of soda, but in another drink, paradoxically, even more uses plastic containers: water.

The latest step has been to Coca Cola, which reported last week in Atlanta for an agreement with three biotech companies -Virent, Gevo and Avantium- to accelerate the development of a bottle made from vegetables. Since 2009, in twenty countries, this brand already sells its famous drink in a PET container made 30% with plants, but now the goal is to reach 100% within a few years. Meanwhile, Pepsi went ahead in March with the announcement of a bottle made entirely from bioplastic, which already would be ready to begin testing next year to produce 200,000 units.

What brand will win this time: Pepsi or Coke? According to The New York Times, the race for producing a large-scale container and for these sodas can be long. In any case, the plastic comes from plants does not want to say it will not have environmental or social impacts. Questions remain to be resolved before declaring victory.
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PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) is a polymer generally formed by 30% by MEG (monoethylene glycol) and 70% PTA (terephthalic acid). Part of MEG, an alcohol, is what Coca Cola has already managed to replace using Brazilian sugar cane on their bottles with the label "plantbottel" (pictured). This package made by 30% from 100% recyclable and vegetables (1) is not marketed in Spain. However, according to Giovanni Beltran, Coca Cola Spain, it is expected to hit supermarkets in 2012.

For the next generation of this beverage containers that lograse manufacture and entirely from plant it should also replace part of PTA, which is more difficult. The question is: Is not this one of many marketing operations then not solve anything? Why is this interesting bottle for carbonated soft drink with 100% plastic made with plants? According to Antonio Balairón, president of the National Association for PET Container (ANEP), conventional plastics are manufactured in petrochemical byproducts from petroleum distillation, so it does not consider that a bottle made with vegetables reduce overall consumption oil (used mainly for fuels and oils). Now if I could avoid the use of these petroleum and reduce adverse effects of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere (the same gas bubbles these soft drinks). Especially if the bottle will bear the name of one of the most consumed brands in the world.

In fact, there is already some other container made of bioplastic, but does not have much impact. Coca Cola marketed in USA own bottle HDPE (high density polyethylene) made with 100% vegetable juices for Odwalla, which can not be used for carbonated beverages. However, the effects are not the same: According to the Atlanta soft drink brand, manufacturing since 2009 of 10,000 million of its containers made Coca Cola 30% with plants has prevented the emission into the atmosphere of 100,000 tons CO2 annually.

This would be the good part. The bad news is that the replacement of oil crops can also cause other serious problems (increased food prices, changes in land use ...). The real impact of these bottles future will depend largely on the type of plant used: to be seen what will become of the claims of both brands when they claim that their packaging waste could also use corn or other vegetable waste.

According Balairón in Spain bioplastics have not yet reached beverage bottles. The main change on the shelves of supermarkets has been the inclusion in some bottles of a percentage of recycled PET (1), but only in some brands of mineral water (it was previously not allowed to use recycled plastic in containers dedicated to food ). In this case, the use of petroleum virgin material is also reduced, but not replacing plant, but by previously used materials and recovered waste. This is regulated by royal decrees 846/2011 and 847/2011 this year, allowing a maximum of 50% recycled material and only water bottles. "I do not understand very well why only water, I guess because it is the plastic packaged beverage in Spain", this chemical incident, explaining that until now there has been no bottle that integrates more than 25% of PET recycled mainly by the shortage of this material in the market. "There is great demand of recycled PET for many other things, such as fibers, sheets, hangers, sheets".

Today there is no approved suppliers of recycled PET for food in Spain, so much comes from a plant of Beaune, in eastern France, related to the Group La Seda de Barcelona (LSB). The director of this facility, Frédéric Blanchard, complained last November of the lack of post-consumer PET quality in the market for processing in the food sector. This occurs because the demand for other multiple uses, but also by the difficulty of extracting currently a pure waste of PET that is not mixed with other plastics. As Balairón incident, the label itself around some PET bottles is now composed of PVC, which is then very difficult to separate in the recycling plants. According to this chemical compound other hard time distinguishing the PET is the PLA (polilático acid), a biodegradable polymer made from vegetables.

Thus, either to replace the petroleum-processed materials from waste or new bioplastics which should preferably be manufactured from waste vegetable, and also reciclarse-, the key would be again in the