Right now, green Sprite bottles are difficult to recycle – so parent company Coca-Cola has announced it’ll change the plastic colour to clear as part of recycling efforts.

From September, the recognisable bottles will change their colour, as well as moving towards using 50% recycled plastic in the manufacture of the containers by 2020.

At the same time, Glaceau water, another brand under the Coca-Cola umbrella, will move to being made of 100% recycled plastic by the end of 2019.

With these component changes, Coca-Cola plans to save 23,000 tonnes of plastic – plastic that won’t have to be manufactured new.

At least 50% recycled PET will be used in all Coca-Cola’s plastic bottles across all of its 20 brands by early next year.

Jon Woods, General Manager of Coca-Cola Great Britain, says: “Using more recycled plastic is a critical element of our sustainable packaging strategy, as it reduces the amount of virgin material used in our packs.

None of this is easy and I am proud of the teams’ work to ensure we are on track to move to at least 50% recycled PET plastic on all of our bottles in 2020.”