Photo/Illutration Plastic bottles produced only from plant-based material are shown with their ingredient, wood chips, on Dec. 3 in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward. (Yuji Yamashita)

Suntory Holdings Ltd. said it has created a plastic bottle made entirely from plant-derived material and will soon make commercial use of the eco-friendly product.

The beverage-making giant said Dec. 3 that the bottle, developed with U.S. biotechnology startup Anellotech Inc., uses such substances as wood chips instead of oil.

According to Suntory’s plans, the plant-based and recycled bottles will be used for all of the company’s plastic containers by 2030.

Suntory used 290,000 tons of plastic bottles in 2020 both in and outside Japan. Recycled ones accounted for around 15 percent of the total while those made in part from botanical material made up only several percent.

Plastic bottles now available in the market are typically made only from petroleum.

However, 30 percent of the ingredients of the container for Suntory Tennensui natural mineral water come from sugar cane molasses that would otherwise be discarded.

In the latest endeavor, the remaining 70 percent of the ingredients made from petroleum were replaced with material derived from wood chips, leading to a bottle based exclusively on plant-based substances.

The prototype bottle uses pine chips, but its quality is as high as its conventional counterpart, according to Suntory.

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