THE CLEAR CHOICE FOR OUR BOTTLES

The green colour looked good on our bottles. For more than sixty years we rocked that translucent, fresh vibe. It was different. It worked, especially for an island that takes green as seriously as we do here on the Emerald Isle.

It was also, we realised, a recycling inefficiency.

Put simply, when colour additives are added to the plastic we use to make our bottles, it makes it harder to recycle into new ones.

Coloured PET (that’s polyethylene terephthalate, the chemical name for the plastic used to manufacture our bottles) has to be separated from the clear PET and is not as widely recycled back to new beverage bottles.

The result? The material in those bottles is likely to decrease in value, meaning they are more likely to be downcycled.

So, the choice was clear...

Taking colours out of the material means that clear plastic Sprite bottles now have a higher chance of being recycled and remade into new bottles, helping drive a circular economy for plastic. Which is what we’re ultimately aiming for.

This was a big step for us. Giving up an iconic colour that’s been part of our brand for such a long time is not something we did easily. But it was clearly – no pun intended – the right thing to do. And that’s something to celebrate.