Coke bottle from 1998 World Cup found washed up on the beach in Brazil
Fishermen in Brazil were left shocked after discovering a Coca-Cola bottle that was produced for the France football World Cup in 1998.
The lucky sea hunters discovered the vintage bottle that is over 25 years old in Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro.
It will have no doubt brought back painful memories of Brazil’s 3-0 defeat to France in the final following goals scored by Zinedine Zidane, 51, Emmanuel Petit, 53, and Marcel Desailly, 55.
France in 1998 were the host nation, and after superstar striker Ronaldo suffered a fit just before kick-off, the eight-times winners ended up with only a silver medal around their neck.
The bottle, produced a quarter of a century ago, featured caricatures of some of the Brazilian players who would lose to France in the final, including Ronaldo, now 47.
The two-litre bottle would normally take about 450 years to biodegrade, with bottlecaps reportedly biodegrading after ‘just’ 150 years.
The unnamed fishermen reportedly picked it up right off the beach after finding it in the sand.
There are more than 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in the oceans, which is roughly 46,000 pieces per square mile of ocean.
Plastic makes up 80 per cent of all marine pollution, with between 8 and 10 metric tons of the stuff ending up in the world’s oceans every year.
Environmental groups have repeatedly called on Coca-Cola to stop producing plastic bottles and revert to recyclable glass bottles instead, a move that the American fizzy drinks giant has repeatedly refused to make.
Coca-Cola is the largest soft drink manufacturer in the world along with Pepsico and Unilever.
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