Odwalla Juices Switching to Sugarcane-Based PlantBottle

 Odwalla, the juice-making Coca-Cola subsidiary, will switch the packaging for all of its single-serve drinks to bottles made almost entirely of plant-based plastic by next March.

The company is adopting Coca-Cola’s PlantBottle packaging, which is made in varying amount of plastic derived from molasses and sugarcane juice.

The bottles that Odwalla will use will be at least 96 percent, and up to 100 percent, plant-based HDPE (a commonly-recycled plastic identified by resin code #2). The bottles are recyclable in systems that already take HDPE.

Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) introduced the PlantBottle in 2009, initially testing PET (resin code #1, also commonly recycled) versions of the PlantBottle on Dasani and sparking water. Currently, though, the PET version can only contain up to 30 percent plant-based material.

Coke has since expanded its use of the PlantBottle, estimating that 2.5 billion will be used by the end of the year, and aims to double that amount next year.

_{Odwalla drinks – CC license by Flickr user hannah.rosen}