"A Master Class In Greenwashing" - Coca-Cola's Pledges On Reuseable Packaging Disappear As It Moves Goalposts Yet Again [View all]

[hatrack]

Coca-Cola has been accused of quietly abandoning a pledge to achieve a 25% reusable packaging target by 2030 in what campaigners call a “masterclass in greenwashing”. The company has been previously found by researchers to be among the world’s most polluting brands when it comes to plastic waste.

In 2022, the company made a promise to have 25% of its drinks sold in refillable or returnable glass or plastic bottles, or in refillable containers that could be filled up at fountains or “Coca-Cola freestyle dispensers”. But shortly before this year’s global plastics summit, the company deleted the page on its website outlining this promise, and it no longer has a target for reusable packaging.

Instead, its packaging targets now say it will “aim to use 35% to 40% recycled material in primary packaging (plastic, glass and aluminum), including increasing recycled plastic use to 30% to 35% globally”. Its previous goal promised to “use 50% recycled material in our packaging by 2030”.

EDIT

Campaigners have called on companies such as Coca-Cola to move from recycled plastic targets to reusable bottle targets, because it is single-use items that are the problem, and recycled single-use items still end up polluting the environment most of the time. “Coke’s latest move is a masterclass in greenwashing, ditching previously announced reuse targets, and choosing to flood the planet with more plastic they can’t even collect and recycle effectively. This only reinforces the company’s reputation as the world’s top plastic polluter,” said Von Hernandez, the global coordinator of the campaign group Break Free from Plastic. “If they can’t even keep their low-bar commitments, how can they claim to be serious about addressing the global plastic crisis?”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/03/coca-cola-accused-dropping-reusable-packaging-target