One of the best things about working on Greenpeace’s campaign to end ocean plastics is the chance to have lots of conversations with all sorts of people about the issue. One question that keeps coming up is - what’s the solution and who bears the responsibility?
While various solutions are being proposed to tackle this daunting problem, it’s clear that to stop the flow of plastic into the ocean, we need to turn the tap off at source. This means ending the era of throwaway plastic. For those of us who live for practical to-do lists, how do we do that?
We’ve kicked off our campaign starting by focussing in on single-use plastic bottles and calling for the companies that are responsible for selling them to us to commit to drastically reducing their plastic footprint, by ditching throwaway plastic. Studies estimate that 600 billion bottles will be produced globally this year - and Coca-Cola alone is responsible for a sixth of all plastic drinks bottles sold around the world.
But isn’t it up to individuals not to litter, and to make sure the plastic bottles they use are recycled?
Well, we all have a responsibility to reduce our plastic footprint - individuals, businesses and governments. But there is such a huge amount of plastic flowing into the ocean that we need to tackle this problem at source.... just like an overflowing sink needs the tap turned off before the water on the floor gets mopped up! And the plastic taps of the world are flowing and flowing and will continue to do so to the detriment of wildlife and people.
So that’s why we’re prioritizing the reduction of the enormous amount of single-use plastic packaging that is being created and sold to us. Even if all bottles were disposed of properly, our garbage collection and recycling systems simply cannot keep up with the amount of plastic we’re using. In just the province of Ontario, an estimated one billion bottles each year end up in the landfill or the environment. And even people’s valiant attempts to avoid plastic on their grocery shops is challenging at best, impossible in many cases.
While it’s important that everyone does their part, it’s not enough that individuals simply recycle more, as the big drinks companies claim. Creating bottles with a tiny amount of recycled content also doesn’t equal the scale of this problem. Without drastic action from the industry itself, we won’t succeed in halting the flow of plastic into the oceans.
Given that Coke sells over 100 billion single-use bottles every year, if the company takes credible action to reduce its plastic footprint and embrace alternative delivery systems and refillable packaging, that can make a massive difference to plastic bottle pollution.
Coca-Cola has previously used its influence across the soft drinks sector and its global supply chain to boost momentum for phasing out highly polluting greenhouse gases from its cooling units. Now it needs to do the same for its plastic footprint.
That’s why we’re encouraging people to demand change from these companies. You can now join over 82,000 people who’ve written directly to Coke’s European CEO to tell him that ocean plastic pollution must end - and that he can’t keep washing his hands of the problem.
Our oceans simply cannot stomach any more plastic - tell Coke to stop choking our oceans. Email Coca-Cola's CEO now.