What’s the fastest way to “go green?” Create some fancy new product? Nah.

For most companies, it’s not about creating something new from scratch.

Instead, they’re taking the road well traveled — they’re modifying existing products, tweaking them bit by bit to be more environmentally friendly than they were yesterday.

That’s what soda company Coca-Cola’s up to in its announcement that it’s creating a “green” version of its beverage “bottles.” The company’s latest innovation is technology that’s been with us since before the dinosaurs — plants.

The company’s now using plant-based plastics to reduce use of oil-based plastic. Coca-Cola’s polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles will contain up to 30% of the plant-based plastic. The vegetable matter is sugar cane and molasses.

Adding the plant plastic to the recipe will make the PlantBottle PET bottles 100% renewable because PET is a totally recyclable material. The move is part of Coca-Cola’s goal to reduce its dependence on petroleum and create sustainable packaging for its various beverage products.

The production change is part of Coca-Cola’s overall plan to make all of its packaging more sustainable by:

• reducing materials used in packaging
• increasing recycling of its products and packaging
• using more recycled content, and
• advancing innovative technologies.

The switch to a sugar-based PET is a major improvement over corn-based plastic bottles.

The corn-based plastic bottles can’t be fully recycled and are instead disposed of in landfills. This is a major problem because when corn-based plastic bottles decompose, they create methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The new sugar-based plastic is chemically the same as PET plastic, which is 100% recyclable — if it is not commingled with the corn-based plastic — and is therefore more carbon-neutral than its corn-based competitor.

The change is touted as “a major step along our sustainable packaging journey” by Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent.

Meanwhile, Coca-Cola is also greening up its vending machines. The company says by 2015 all of its vending machines will use non-hydrocarbon refrigerants.

Tags: Coca-Cola, plant-based plastics, PlantBottle, recycling, renewable