The Coca-Cola Company with its partner, Paboco, made significant progress in the process of creating a first paper bottle.

With investment in innovation, exploration of different technologies and, crucially, partnership and collaboration, The Coca-Company seeks to create a paper bottle that can be recycled like any paper. These efforts resulted in the creation of the first-generation paper bottle prototype that still consists of a paper shell with a plastic closure and a plastic liner inside. Although The Coca-Cola Company uses the plastic made from 100% recycled plastic that can be recycled again after use, the next step and the final goal is to find a solution to create a bottle without the plastic liner and made entirely of paper.

Just like other types of Coca-Cola packaging, a paper bottle that will be in the hands of consumers in the future must adhere to the same high safety and quality standards for food packaging and therefore undergoes comprehensive testing in the lab to see how it performs in the refrigerator, how strong it is, and how well it protects the drinks inside.

Consumer habits are constantly evolving. At the same time, leading a healthy and active lifestyle and adopting corporate environmental responsibility are becoming increasingly more important. Accordingly, The Coca-Cola Company has begun introducing changes in its business operations that are visible both inside and outside the bottle, in an effort to offer solutions that are not only suited to consumer habits but also protect the environment.

The first-generation paper bottle is a part of these efforts and represents an important step in meeting the goals of the comprehensive, multi-year World Without Waste plan. In line with the plan, The Coca-Cola Company is committed to collect and recycle a bottle or can for each one it sells, and use at least 50-percent recycled material in its packaging by 2030. Moreover, The Coca-Cola Company has been investing considerable efforts to make its primary packaging 100-percent recyclable globally by 2025.

Thus, last year, its Römerquelle mineral water became the first water in Croatia with a complete product range made entirely of recycled plastic bottles.

Besides introducing numerous innovations and reducing its environmental footprint, for the past two years, Coca-Cola in Croatia has been implementing a socially responsible project, Od izvora do mora (From the Source to the Sea), retrieving plastic waste from the Croatian rivers and lakes, and the Adriatic Sea, and raising awareness about the importance of proper packaging waste disposal. This year, supported by The Coca-Cola Foundation, an initiative titled Šibenik Zero Waste City was launched in Šibenik in cooperation with the local community. The initiative is aimed at raising public awareness about recycling, promoting the development of waste-reducing habits, and providing the necessary waste-sorting infrastructure on the city’s beaches and streets.