The paper straws of Hey Tea haven’t disappeared, but the paper bottles of Coca-Cola are coming again
I believe everyone has felt the suffering of paper straws.
Unexpectedly, the paper straw has not disappeared, and the paper bottle is coming again.
Coca-Cola, the world's best-selling carbonated beverage brand, is preparing to launch a brand new paper bottle beverage-ADEZ .
This summer, Coca-Cola will pilot the sale of this paper bottle plant drink in the Hungarian market to see how people accept the paper bottle packaging. For the sake of environmental protection, Coca-Cola, which has been rated as the world's largest plastic pollution company for three consecutive years, is finally about to work on plastic bottles.
This may set off a new wave of "paper bottle drinks."
What is Coca-Cola's paper bottle drink?
This new paper bottle product is the first step for Coca-Cola to create future paper bottle beverages.
It was created by Coca-Cola in cooperation with the Danish company Paboco , 250 ml, which is similar to a can of "fat house water".
But different from the small waist design of "Fat House Water", its body shape is cylindrical, and the lower body is pleated, which visually increases the texture of paper.
The inner wall of the bottle body is designed with a layer of biological material protective film to prevent the drink from permeating or leaking.
However, the production material is the core place. It is made of Nordic wood pulp paper, which is 100% recyclable .
Moreover, the paper bottle is made of single paper fiber. This integrated design can strengthen the strength of the bottle and make the bottle more resistant to pressure and not broken during transportation and in the sealed state.
It is worth mentioning that its bottle body pattern is printed with sustainable ink or laser engraving, which can minimize the amount of material.
Even the beverage caps are made of biodegradable plastic.
A paper shell, a biological material protective film, and a biodegradable plastic cap make up this new paper bottle.
Not only that, this material is extremely malleable, and a variety of bottle designs can be manufactured in the future, which can be promoted to any Coca-Cola drink.
We firmly believe that paper packaging can play a role in the future, and a paper bottle is about to open a whole new packaging world.
This plan is one of Coca-Cola's "A World Without Waste" initiative. Coca-Cola's desire to bring a trend of "paper bottles" is not groundless.
A long time ago, Coca-Cola led the trend of beverage packaging. After its unique curved bottle packaging was designed in 1915, it was followed by many beverage brands.
In 1950, this design also appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in the United States , becoming the first commercial product to appear on the cover of the magazine.
Now because of the rising tide of environmental protection, the Coca-Cola Company has been rated as the world's largest plastic polluter by Greenpeace for three consecutive times. Coca-Cola produces more than 3 million tons of plastic each year. Environmental protection actions are urgent.
Therefore, since 2018, Coca-Cola has formulated a complete set of environmental protection plans to deal with pollution, including that all packaging will be 100% recyclable in 2023, and all plastic packaging will contain at least 50% recycled materials.
In fact, Coca-Cola's glass bottles and aluminum cans are already 100% recyclable. Recycling all the bottles is the most important issue. But paper is indeed easier to be biodegraded and recycled than plastic, glass, and cans.
Consumers are still looking forward to Coca-Cola's development of a new, innovative and sustainable packaging for the plastic bottles of Coca-Cola that are still all over the market.
Next, this new paper bottle drink ADEZ will also be innovated in the test, including its durability, the ability to protect the drink in the bottle, and so on.
Coca-Cola hopes to continue to develop 100% recyclable bottles that can be applied to other products, including liquid, carbon dioxide, and even oxygen. In the future, this sustainable paper bottle will completely replace plastic bottles.
In other words, the happy water of Fei Zhai may become a paper bottle in the future .
Not only Coca-Cola, they are all making paper bottles
In addition to Coca-Cola, there are many other brands that have already taken the lead and set off this new trend of paper bottles.
Having said that, I have to talk about the company behind them, Paboco (The Paper Bottle Company).
This is a paper bottle company established by a joint venture between Swedish paper packaging company BillerudKorsnas and Austrian plastic packaging manufacturer Alpla. The former has begun to develop related technologies in 2015. They began to work together in March 2019 to try to break through the paper beer’s "water and oxygen barrier". "The problem.
The company's goal is to manufacture wood fiber beverage bottles containing "bio-based barriers that can block water vapor and oxygen," as well as bottle caps made of bio-composite materials or pure paper.
In this way, it can help manufacturers and distributors reduce the pollution of single-use plastic waste.
That is, in October 2019, Coca-Cola, Carlsberg, L'Oreal, Absolut and other companies have joined the ranks, forming a "paper bottle community", working together to make paper bottles a reality in daily life.
On October 11, Carlsberg announced the world's first paper beer bottle at the C40 Global Mayors Summit in Copenhagen.
It is made of sustainable wood fiber and contains a barrier layer, which can hold any conventional beer.
The two paper bottles unveiled at the scene, one uses a recycled PET polymer film barrier, and the other uses a 100% bio-based PEF polymer film barrier, both to test the barrier technology.
Since 2018, Carlsberg has launched various innovative packaging technologies such as recycled shrink film and green label ink. Among them, the packaging technology called "Snap Pack" uses glue to glue cans together for transportation, thereby reducing 76%. The amount of plastic packaging used is ingenious.
Ultimately, the Carlsberg Group’s goal is to achieve a polymer-free 100% bio-based wine bottle and promise to reduce the carbon footprint of “beer in hand” by 30% by 2030.
In 2030, it seems that it has become the "end of the environmental protection competition" for major brands.
The same is true for Absolut Vodka. It is a well-known vodka brand under Pernod Ricard, and promises that by 2025, all packaging will be 100% recyclable, recyclable, degradable, and bio-based.
Previously, Absolut Vodka Group has launched paper wine bottles, which use all-bio-based wine bottles to hold spirits. This wine bottle is composed of 57% paper materials and 43% recyclable plastics. It has been sold in the UK and Sweden at the same time. Over 2000 bottles.
In the wine industry, British beverage giant Diageo also said that it will try out the new environmentally friendly paper bottle packaging this spring, which is also the world's first plastic-free paper spirits bottle.
Although the above-mentioned brands are similar in the manufacturing methods and technologies of paper bottles, it can be seen that paper bottles have begun to get involved in daily beverages in various fields.
Our most common paper-packaged beverage is probably carton milk. However, most dairy cartons on the market today are actually composite structure products made of 6 layers of different materials such as aluminum foil, PE plastic film, fiber, and paper. It is difficult to recycle as a single material, and the recycling cost is also very high. high.
The paper bottles of alcoholic beverages, fruit juice beverages, and carbonated beverages are now undergoing the evolution of "100% paper-based".
The entire food and beverage industry is being watched for changes by environmental organizations and consumers. Pepsi also plans to try 100% carton packaging in the soft drink line in 2021.
The actions of large brands will bring greater demonstration effects to the entire consumer goods industry.
Looking back, in the past, plastic reduction, low carbon, and environmental protection, these slogans that were once hyped up, seem to have really begun to penetrate into our lives in recent years.
After the paper straws, can paper bottles be made?
Major brands began to make paper bottles, on the one hand, to follow the trend of environmental protection . After all, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States, scientists estimate that 8 million tons of plastic enter the ocean every year.
In 2019, about 525 billion waste beverage bottles were produced globally, but only 10% can be recycled. In 2021, this number will increase by 20% .
On the other hand, it is also due to social pressure.
Since 2019, in order to reduce single-use plastics, many countries and companies around the world are reducing plastic straws, and international organizations and governments have begun to issue plastic bans.
In May, the European Commission put forward the "most stringent plastic restriction order in history", announcing that all single-use plastic products will be banned from retail in 2021, and member states need to achieve the goal of recycling 90% of beverage bottles by 2029.
In my country, McDonald’s, Starbucks and other chain restaurant brands have begun to use paper straws or biodegradable straws. Starting from January 1 this year, my country’s plastic straw ban has also come into effect nationwide. The catering industry has completely banned the use of non-degradable disposable straws. Plastic straws.
Whether under policy or public opinion, the sustainable development of the beverage packaging industry is obviously accelerating, and various materials such as cartons, rPET, PLA (polylactic acid), etc. are gradually being commercialized.
Moreover, with the rise of the paper bottle tide, various innovative solutions will emerge, which will also bring about a vast commercial space. Renewable beverage packaging including paper bottles is the general trend.
▲ Frugalpac, a British sustainable packaging company, will release wines made from sustainable recycled cardboard in 2020
However, can paper bottles really completely replace plastic bottles?
Plastic bottles are one of the main reasons why bottled beverages are popular in the world.
Those clean and clear drinks will look more attractive in transparent bottles. Charles Fishman , a senior journalist who is concerned about drinking water in the United States, once said that if water is packed in an invisible paper bottle, its attractiveness It will be greatly reduced.
▲ Picture from: unsplash
Moreover, the hardness and holding feeling of paper cannot be compared with plastic at all .
The paper bottle drink may no longer be able to be squeezed and tortured in a bag like in the past, and cannot be thrown to sweaty teammates on the college court. If the paper bottle mouth softens, it will start. Muddled up, the refreshing and cleanness of the drink will be gone forever.
At that time, whether the drink or paper is in the mouth, whether the taste is drink or paper, will all become Schrödinger’s puzzles…
These are all the same as the bad experience brought by paper straws . The paper straws once faced the whole people's complaints, and paper bottles must experience it again .
However, paper packaging is not of an order of magnitude more difficult than paper straws. Compared with plastic packaging, the production process of liquid packaging paper is much more complicated.
Moreover, paper bottle packaging is also facing several major technical problems such as plastic lining, isolation of different liquids, taste and content preservation, etc., which all need to be solved later.
These changes are all in the food field, so they should not be underestimated and deserve more attention.
But paper straws were exposed as an IQ tax last year , because the quality of recycled paper must be worse than that of virgin paper. Paper straws can almost only be treated as general garbage and cannot be recycled. It has the properties of "disposable" and "degradable". It can't even compare to partially recyclable plastic products.
Substituting paper for plastic will in fact cause environmental damage in the process of felling trees, processing and manufacturing.
However, it can indeed reduce plastic waste, and the pollution to the environment is much smaller than that of plastic, but it is not the fundamental way to solve plastic pollution.
For consumers, product premiums and consumer experience are more issues worthy of corporate consideration.
Now everyone’s awareness of health and environmental protection is slowly emerging, but consumers are not "stunned". Whether a product is truly environmentally friendly requires companies to provide more transparent and clear information, and they refuse to show off. Consumers need to be truly convinced. It is worthwhile to truly gain the trust of consumers.
Paper straws and paper bottles are a microcosm of the road to the ban on plastics and environmental protection.
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