The glass bottle Coca-Cola is BACK! And it is more than just a pretty package. In Hong Kong, Latin America, Africa, and the Southwestern United States, Coca-Cola is testing out new 60% recycled glass bottles that you can return once you have finished sipping your sweet, sweet cola. The company will then refill them and use them again. Not only that, but these new bottles are larger than the previously released glass bottles, increasing to 250mL from 192mL (that’s like 23.2% more Coke, y’all).
Hong Kong has already begun to test this model with Coca-Cola brands from Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola No Sugar to Sprite, Fanta, and Schweppes Cream Soda. Once returned to the bottling plant, the bottles are “cleaned, disinfected, and refilled.” And the cycle continues. Assuming people actually return their bottles, that is.
On the one hand, Coca-Cola is trying to make a drink more cheaply so that they can lower their prices while still earning a profit in this time of rampant inflation. On the other hand, this seems to be a great move in terms of sustainability and caring for the environment (and showing off sustainability efforts never hurts with the younger consumers, I’m sure).
Here’s Why Soda Is Better Than Flavored Seltzer
Breakfast comes in all shapes and sizes: liquid If you think you like the taste of seltzer, you are wrong and it is time to finally be honest with yourself. You like the idea of seltzer. You like the promise of seltzer. In reality, you do not actually like seltzer.
As a member of Coca-Cola’s target demographic, do I have a few questions, however. How many people are actually going to do this? How numerous are the drop-off locations and where are they? Are people given a monetary incentive to actually return the bottles? I want to believe that Coca-Cola is going to create a reduce, reuse, and recycle utopia where no new bottles need to be manufactured, and weekends are three days long, and cows poop rainbows, but I also know that if I lived over 10 miles from a drop off site, I would probably choose to recycle or reuse the bottles myself and save the gas, time, and energy. Maybe I’m just lazy? Maybe it’s Maybelline? Maybe I mentioned cows pooping rainbows as a joke a second ago but now I’m wondering what the mechanics of that would look like? Who knows. Either way, this is a cool concept and I’m excited to see where it goes! If enough companies opt to follow a model like this, it could be a great way to slow the roll of climate change, if even by a little.
Also, if nothing else, glass bottle Coke has a classic aesthetic to it and we can at least be excited for that to return in the States along with debates about which Coke is better: bottle or can? Link says can. What do you think?
H/T Design Taxi
Regular coke in a glass bottle
250ml is barely more than 8 ounces. We used to have 16oz bottles in the USA when I was a kid and that was the norm. You brought them back and got your deposit back for recycling. Then we dumped that because you know, recycling SUCKS, apparently. So now they bring back bottles, but only 8 ounces? That’s less than a can of my favorite diet soda while soda prices have gone through the stratosphere and they blame it on aluminum price increases and inflation. Most of that is bologna, of course. It’s PURE PROFIT. $8 a 12 pack? That’s insane! So how about 16oz glass bottles again? Glass is made from silica (sand). It costs NOTHING to make by comparison. But bringing that back won’t bring soda prices down. And if demand drops off because of price, they’ll just say people don’t like soda anymore because they have ZERO interest in lowering their profits. EVIL begets more EVIL.
My city has already made glass recycling so you have to take it to a drop off in stead of putting it in the can at the road. And my current apartment doesn’t even have a recycling option. I’m to lazy to take my normal recycling somewhere else so most of the time it just ends up in the trash anyway. Wouldn’t end up keeping bottles till I had enough to make return worthwhile.
For where it’s being tested I think it’ll work very well. In Mexico it’s already pretty common to return your glass Coca Cola bottles to get new ones.