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This week, the Coca-Cola Company announced a temporary program that will give customers free pizza and a plastic bottled Coca-Cola beverage, in return for their depositing empty plastic bottles, in select markets. The scheme purports to increase awareness of the company’s new 100% recycled PET bottles, also available only in select markets at this point, and to promote recycling of the company’s plastic bottles.

In response, Defend Our Health’s Senior Market Campaigner, Maya Rommwatt, said:

“Amidst a climate crisis and a pollution crisis in the Gulf and Southeast US, Coca-Cola should be meaningfully expanding refill and reuse systems in this country.  Instead, Coca-Cola continues to pump out toxic plastic bottles. While we applaud Coke’s 2030 goal to sell 25% of global beverages in refillable or reusable systems as a step in the right direction, it is not nearly enough and it will allow the company to escape responsibility for its toxic air, water, and climate impacts in its home country. It’s no secret that Coca-Cola will likely meet its refill and reuse target predominantly outside the US, in countries where refill and reuse systems are already in place. But if Coke really is number one, it should be rapidly building systems at home that allow its loyal US customer base to enjoy its products that actually address the plastic pollution problem. Refill and reuse systems that use local bottling and washing facilities have a lower carbon footprint, produce less toxic chemicals, and can support local economies.

Coca-Cola buys and sells around a fifth of all plastic PET bottles on the planet. As such a  behemoth plastic consumer it bears responsibility for the effects those bottles have on our climate and in communities where the bottles are created. Made almost entirely from oil and gas, PET bottle manufacturing requires a great deal of energy–adding dangerously to the climate crisis we’re in–and involves dirty processes that are known to disproportionately pollute Black and low-wealth communities in the Gulf and Southeast. Simply recycling some bottles will not do enough to slow these twin environmental crises down. Recycled bottles are often “downcycled” into low-quality plastic clothing and textiles that are only used once before they’re thrown out. The best tool for reigning in Coca-Cola’s plastic pollution is to rapidly expand refill and reuse systems in the US.”