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Coke’s own head of sustainability thinks so. At the World Economic Forum this week, she told billionaire conference-goers that the soda corp won’t stop producing new plastic bottles because consumers still want them.
This is just the latest in a long history of Coca-Cola trying to pass the buck to consumers. Nobody asked for the 3 million tonnes of plastic that Coke admits it produces every year, or for the unspeakable harm those bottles have done to our oceans and rivers.
But we are asking Coke for something now: responsibility. With enough pressure from you, the company will take meaningful action to tackle the mountain of plastic it’s created, even if that puts a dent in its precious profits.
Coca-Cola: Stop blaming consumers and tackle your plastic crisis!
A plastic waste audit last year found more Coca-Cola bottles than any other brand -- whether washed up on beaches, clogging waterways or littering green spaces. Publicly, Coke makes a show of supporting charities that are willing to clean up its mess, but behind the scenes, its lobbyists reportedly fight against laws that would keep the company from polluting in the first place.
Coke’s execs know exactly what they need to do to save our plastic-choked planet:
- commit Coke to an immediate reduction in plastic use,
- create ambitious targets for reusing and recycling the bottles Coke produces,
- and support any effort -- including bottle deposit schemes and more informative labels -- that would result in better recycling of Coke's “recyclable” products.
What we don’t need is for Coke to come up with a quick fix on plastic that looks good but creates environmental impact elsewhere. It’s helped create the harm. It now needs to help create the solutions.
But experts say that Coke won’t pledge itself to transformative change because the solutions to its global plastic problem cost a lot of money.
So we need your help to force Coca-Cola to act -- just like when we pushed the European Union to pass a groundbreaking law banning some of the most harmful single-use plastics. Or last year, when countless SumOfUs members like you convinced governments to add plastic to the Basel Convention on hazardous waste, which helped protect countries from floods of unwanted plastic garbage.
Together, we can tell Coke’s bosses we don’t need or want their plastic. Let's challenge them to commit to tangible steps to reduce their plastic and carbon footprint, and the transparency needed for proper enforcement.
Coca-Cola: Nobody wants more plastic bottles. Stop blaming us and clean up your own mess!
Thanks for all that you do,
David, Deborah, and the team at SumOfUs
