Here’s why Coca-Cola is eliminating the iconic green Sprite bottle Coca-Cola ditches green Sprite bottles and switches to clear to be more environmentally friendly. By October, all green bottles will be phased out, including Fresca and Mello Yello. The change makes it more likely bottles will be recycled. Say goodbye to the iconic green Sprite bottle. Coca-Cola is transitioning the brand to clear plastic bottles on August 1. By October, the company will do the same for Fresca, Mello Yello, and Seagram''s. Turns out, green plastic isn''t green in the environmental sense. A colored bottle contaminates the recycling stream and has to be separated out, increasing the chances it ends up in a landfill. There''s not a big market for green plastic either, so recyclers can''t make much money selling it off to be made into new packaging. "By making our bottles clear — a huge change for the brand — it makes them much more likely to go through the recycling system and come back to us as recycled PET," said Chris Vallette, senior vice president of technical innovation and stewardship, citing an industry term for the plastic used to make bottles.