Sweet addition: Coca-Cola launches sugar cane bottle

The Coca-Cola Company has unveiled a plastic bottle made entirely from renewable plant material.

The US beverage giant claims the bottle is fully recyclable and the first to use PET plastic (a common type of polyester) that is entirely derived from sugar cane found in plants.

"The packaging looks, functions and recycles like traditional PET but has a lighter footprint on the planet and its scarce resources," Coca-Cola said in a statement.

The bottle was unveiled at the World Expo in Milan on Wednesday.

The announcement follows a growing trend of companies introducing policies to reduce their emissions and waste in order to become more environmentally sustainable.

For instance, Coca-Cola rival PepsiCo said it saved more than 1000 metric tons of PET in 2013 through packaging innovations.

Meanwhile, Olay, one of Procter & Gamble's flagship brands, says it reduced the amount of plastic used by 800,000 tons a year through making changes to the design of its Total Effects bottlepump.

Coca-Cola has already created an eco-friendly bottle, dubbed the PlantBottle, that is made from up to 30 per cent plant-based materials. The PlantBottle packaging uses Brazilian sugar cane and waste from the sugar cane manufacturing process.

According to its recent press release, Coca-Cola has distributed more than 35 billion bottles with PlantBottle packaging since 2009 and estimates that this has helped reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 315,000 metric tons.

Coca-Cola said it was also looking at converting fruit stems, peels and bark into plastic in the future.

About 30 per cent of Coke bottles in North America are PlantBottles, but just seven per cent are made from plant materials. The company said its goal was to exclusively use PlantBottles in place of petroleum-based plastic bottles by 2020.

Coca-Cola is reportedly working with Ford, Heinz, Nike, Procter & Gamble and SeaWorld to help them use more plant materials in their plastics as well. Heinz ketchup bottles, plastic cups at SeaWorld and certain test models of the Fusion Energi hybrid sedan use PlantBottle plastic.