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I'm confused how this is anything other than "Coca-Cola the worlds most popular beverage maker" Coca-Cola didn't do anything to put that garbage there, people
by woofcat 6y ago
I'm confused how this is anything other than "Coca-Cola the worlds most popular beverage maker"
Coca-Cola didn't do anything to put that garbage there, people who consumed their product did.
- cwwc 6y agoGood point, I agree the onus is partially upon consumers. That said, glass bottles are an option.
- mc32 6y agoAt least with glass eventually we'd get "beach glass". (I don't think making glass and handling glass and so on that much more environmentally friendly than plastics are.
- acadien 6y agoPlease take 10 minutes to educate yourself on this topic. https://apps.npr.org/plastics-recycling https://apps.npr.org/plastics-recycling https://lbre.stanford.edu/pssistanford-recycling/frequently-asked-questions/frequently-asked-questions-glass-recycling https://lbre.stanford.edu/pssistanford-recycling/frequently-...
- whomst 6y agoThat’s very condescending
- stevenhuang 6y agoNo, it isn't.
- colechristensen 6y agoPlease do not use this kind of language when talking to any other humans.
- jsjw7sbw 6y agoWhats wrong with the laguage?
- colechristensen 6y agoThe smug moral superiority of the "educate yourself" trope is the problem.
- joecool1029 6y agoI actually found the second link quite informative. I'm quite willing to admit that I was ignorant to the fact that different types of glass are not recyclable (or at least not easily so). It doesn't help when comments like this are flagged. People need to get over their insecurities.
- coin 6y agoOr just reuse the bottle
- southeastern 6y agoThey use plastic bottles instead of alternatives. I'm not saying consumers don't have responsibility, but it starts with coca cola ordering/producing these bottles to package their product.
- jamesrcole 6y agoThen why are they being singled out? Plenty of other companies use plastic just as much in their products.
- Joakal 6y agoThey have the biggest brand. Brand shaming could lead to change not just them but ripple effect on other plastic using companies.
- southeastern 6y agoBecause they are the biggest offenders, for three years running. Rather than trying to target the abstract 'beverage industry' as a whole, it's much more pragmatic to just look at the biggest players. Besides, they tend to set trends so there's a little bit of top-down influence as well in being the industry leader.
- Joakal 6y agoCoca-Cola privatises the profits from sales and socialises the plastic costs. Even if people don't litter, there are landfills increasingly filling with plastic not being reused. The solution is quite mundane, a plastic bottle tax to pay for processing it. People litter and makes processing cost more? Increase tax. They need to figure out ways to reduce this tax burden beyond lobbying. Ie campaign to avoid littering, glass bottles, etc. Currently they wage multi million campaigns against this simple tax all over the world, even in Australia where tax is 10c per bottle.
- dannyw 6y agoGlass bottles are arguably worse for the environment. More drink foundations where you bring your own bottle, and more convenient recycling options (smart bins everywhere that credit you 10c for every bottle you deposit... then raise this to 15c, 25c, etc).
- lend000 6y agoI imagine the 10c doesn't encourage as many people as a +1 public recycling score on one of your social media profiles would.
- stevekemp 6y agoIn Finland almost every single can, and drinks bottle, has a corresponding price printed on it, ranging from €0.10 to €0.25. You can return them at almost any local store and receive cash. There are hundreds of unemployed/retired/homeless people who scour parks, and the city centers, collecting these discarded containers and recycling them for the money. The return rate is pretty high, even with the tiny amount of money per-item.
- a_c 6y agoFor two - Coke changed from glass bottle to plastic bottle. Or they popularized plastic bottle to put in another way - They launched campaign to "recycle" bottles. So people focus less on consuming "less" bottles From Citizen Coke https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28789663-citizen-coke https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28789663-citizen-coke
- dredmorbius 6y agoThe "individual responsibility" argument, going back to 1970s anti-littering campaigns and the crying (fake) Indian (fake) TV advert (and before), are corporate gambits to shirk their own obligations: Annie Leonard, "Moving from Individual Change to Societal Change" (2013) [pdf] http://www.pfree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Moving-from-Individual-Change-to-Societal-Change-Annie-Leonard-2013.pdf http://www.pfree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Moving-fro...
- byecomputer 6y agoI see your point, but ultimately it's down to you to see that your can ends up in the bin. I think these bottlers latch on to that argument because it's intuitive and pretty reasonable
- dredmorbius 6y agoFraming environmental deterioration as the result of poor individual choices—littering, leaving the lights on when we leave a room, failing to car-pool—not only distracts us from identifying and demanding change from the real drivers of environmental decline. It also removes these issues from the political realm to the personal, implying that the solution is in our personal choices rather than in better policies, business practices, and structural context. -- Annie Leonard From the article linked above.
- byecomputer 6y agoI read the article, what I'm saying is that it's a go-to argument for these companies because there's truth to it, and when taken at face-value it's really not that audacious to say, "people ought to recycle the containers they buy". Is that sentiment exploited by Coca-Cola and others in a way that makes it encompass more than it really does? Of course. But if it was an all-around flimsy argument then it wouldn't be "ol' faithful", they'd just find a different argument to use instead.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
- Technically 6y agoThat's kind of like saying the river doesn't flow to the coast, it flows from the mountains. Trying to shift the onus of market effects onto consumers seems rather pointless—it's not like there's going to be some kind of mass revelation that this is bad sufficient to change market forces largely invisible to the consumer (by design!). It's a state problem or it's barely a problem at all. If you're hinting at some kind of political conclusion I've come up empty handed after searching your post.
- andrei_says_ 6y agoAre you implying that there’s no causality between producing billions of plastic bottles and said bottles ending up all over the place?
- probably_wrong 6y agoThat's not entirely correct. The Intercept published this article last year [1] with leaked audios showing how Coca Cola undermines efforts to make things better while blaming the customers. It is a great read with plenty of sources. Coca Cola might not have put that garbage there themselves, but they have actively fought efforts to make the consumer behave better. That's almost as bad. [1] https://theintercept.com/2019/10/18/coca-cola-recycling-plastics-pollution/ https://theintercept.com/2019/10/18/coca-cola-recycling-plas...
- dorkwood 6y agoI think when you manufacture plastic bottles at the sort of volume Coca-Cola does and distribute them across the globe indiscriminately, you would have to know that some percentage of your product would not be disposed of responsibly (humans being imperfect creatures and all). You would have to be ok with that outcome, and yet go ahead with manufacturing anyway. I believe that makes them partly responsible.