TotalEnergies Corbion has launched an embossed, label-free PLA water bottle for the South Korean beverage market to improve recycling efficiency and support circular packaging systems.
Embossed branding replacing conventional labels eliminates one of the main obstacles to efficient bottle recycling. By integrating brand identification directly into the bottle wall, the design allows bottles to enter recycling streams without additional processing, supporting cleaner material flows and higher-quality recycled output.
The embossed approach preserves shelf recognition and visual appeal, while avoiding the need for manual label removal – supporting both operational efficiency and material purity in recycling processes.
The bottle is designed to integrate into a closed-loop PLA recycling system established by TotalEnergies Corbion and Sansu (i’m eco). Post-consumer bottles are collected, pre-processed, and chemically recycled via hydrolysis, breaking PLA down into its original building block – lactic acid monomer – which is then reused to produce new recycled Luminy PLA (rPLA) with consistent material performance.
Made from Luminy PLA, TotalEnergies Corbion’s biobased plastic designed for recycling and composting, the bottle demonstrates how material innovation and recycling infrastructure can be aligned to enable circular reuse at scale, the company said.
Recent independently verified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results further support the environmental performance of this approach. According to the latest Luminy PLA LCA, virgin PLA achieves a significantly lower carbon footprint compared with conventional plastics, while incorporating recycled PLA enables carbon-neutral and carbon-negative material options, depending on recycled content.
Hao Ding, global marketing director at TotalEnergies Corbion, said, “As markets increasingly focus on recyclability, carbon performance, and consumer acceptance, this project demonstrates the potential of PLA-based solutions to meet functional requirements while supporting broader circular economy objectives – without compromising brand recognition or industrial performance.”