Pepsi joins consortium for biobased bottles

PepsiCo has joined Danone, Nestlé Waters, and the biobased polymer firm Origin Materials in the NaturALL Bottle Alliance, a research consortium working to accelerate development of beverage containers made with 100% biobased polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The alliance, formed in 2017, plans to use waste biomass, such as cardboard and sawdust, as feedstocks so as to not compete with food resources. It has selected a site in Sarnia, Ontario, to construct a demonstration plant that can process 18,000 metric tons of biomass per year. The plant is expected to open by 2020 and will initially produce 95% biobased PET. Pepsi rival Coca-Cola is separately working to produce fully biobased PET with p-xylene raw material from partners Virent and Gevo. Coca-Cola is also investing in polyethylene furanoate (PEF), a competing packaging polymer. Notably, Coca-Cola is backing efforts by Synvina, a partnership of BASF and Avantium, to produce the PEF intermediate 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid from fructose.