Coke’s Plant-Based Bottles Won’t Fix Bad Consumer Habits
In another minor effort to appease critics of wasteful, petroleum-based plastic bottles, Coca-Cola Co. has introduced a new packaging alternative made from 30% sugar cane-based materials. The other 70% is made from – you guessed it – petroleum-derived polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Coca-Cola says it plans to shift to this packaging for all beverages it produces, and insists that the packaging is better than regular plastic bottles because it uses fewer non-renewable resources.
The New York Daily News explains,
In order to test the eco-friendliness of the new packaging, Coke commissioned and funded an analysis at London’s Imperial College to compare if the production processes of the two bottles produced different effects on the environment, says Scott Vitters, the company’s director of sustainable packaging, The Wall Street Journal reports. He said that the production of the plant bottle leaves a 12% to 19% smaller carbon footprint than the production of a regular plastic bottle. These findings have not yet received third-party verification.
In all reality, this packaging really doesn’t have much of an impact on the growing problem of unsustainable plastic packaging. Sure, it’s nice to cut back on the amount of petroleum they’re using, but they’re still plastic bottles, and let’s not even get into the non-eco-friendliness of the products they provide.
No doubt, the company can do better than this. They clearly haven’t put too much effort into developing the most sustainable packaging possible. But when it comes down to it, isn’t Coca-Cola just meeting voracious consumer demand for addictive, syrupy-sweet carbonated beverages in convenient portable containers?
While companies need to take responsibility for the sustainability of their products and packaging, considering the entire life of what they produce and where it will all ultimately end up, consumers need to step up to the plate, too. Cutting back on the consumption of these kinds of crap products in the first place would be a huge step – as would hitting up soda fountain machines, reusable container in hand, when the craving strikes.
Even taking the initiative to recycle bottles instead of throwing them away would be a big step forward, though not an ultimate fix (isn’t it amazing that there are still people who toss plastic bottles in the trash?)
In a perfect world, we would all work together on these things, but bad habits are hard to break. Taking small steps is okay as long as you don’t get too comfortable doing the bare minimum. We need more effort from both sides.
Related posts:
- Earth Day Fail: Coca-Cola Promotes Bottled Water
- Aluminum Water Bottles-Eco Deal of the Day
- Sustainable Packaging is Growing Fast
- Wine Bottles That Reduce Impact on Environment
- Message in a Bottle: A Village Made of Recycled Bottles
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 11:00 am and is filed under Consciousness, Green Living, Health, Science, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
