Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
In an effort to address the global plastic pollution crisis*, The Coco-Cola Company has been steadily producing lighter PET**plastic bottles (Coca-Cola, 2024). The lighter bottles have new shapes allowing to produce the bottles using less plastic, while still guaranteeing beverage quality. Thus, over the course of 10 years, Coca-Cola bottles have steadily decreased weight, from 27 grams to a breakthrough 18.5 gram bottle, rolled out in 2024, for Coca-Cola soft drinks (Coke, Fanta and Sprite), in both the United States and Canada.
The reduced weight of the bottles has a significant impact. The unused plastic amounts to 800 million bottles less each year. Additionally, production of the lightweight bottle reduces the carbon footprint of bottle manufacturing by an amount equivalent to removing 17,000 cars off the road. Thus, the lightweight PET soft drink bottle is consistent with the goals that The Coca-Coca Company has set forth for a World without Waste.
The ornamental properties of the lightweight bottles, or the way the bottles look, are patented designs. For example, the US design patents USD760084S1, USD792229S1 and USD796332S1, all three titled Bottle, respectively, correspond to the Coke, Fanta and Sprite lightweight bottle designs. However, the patent Figures (see below) for the three bottle designs each have broken lines at the base, indicating that the design patents do not cover the base of the bottles. Indeed, the base of the bottles is petaloid, which is an invention in its own right that allows gas to expand within the bottles, without stress-cracking the bottles, and by the same token enables the bottles to remain level and upright on a shelf. Thus, the petaloid base of the bottles is covered, for example, by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) utility patent WO2016019318A1, titled Lightweight base for carbonated beverage packaging. A patent that is part of a large family of patents, covering the petaloid base of the lightweight bottles.
Below, the patent Figures for three of the lightweight bottle designs, excluding coverage of the base. The three patent Figures are shown above an image of the marketed lightweight PET bottles for Coca-Cola, Fanta, and Sprite soft drinks.
*Each year more than 400 million tons of plastic are produced. In the USA, only an estimated 27% of plastic is recycled. Worldwide, 10% of plastic is recycled. As a result, approximately 2000 trucks of plastic are dumped into the ocean every day. Thus, Each year 19 to 23 million tons of plastic leak into aquatic systems, polluting rivers, lakes and oceans (UNEP, 2025).
UNEP (July 1, 2025). Plastic Pollution. UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution
Coca-Cola (March 28, 2024). Coca-Cola North America Debuts New Lightweight PET Bottle Designs. The Coca-Cola Company website.
https://www.coca-colacompany.com/media-center/coca-cola-north-america-debuts-new-lightweight-pet-bottle-designs
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