Green Group Takes Aim At Coca-Cola Over Packaging

According to The Coca-Cola Company, an estimated 1.9 billion servings of Coke are drunk around the world every single day. That shakes out to roughly 13 billion empty cans and plastic two-liter bottles every week, which end up in recycling bins or garbage cans. Per Coca-Cola, 90% of the company's packaging is currently totally recyclable, and by 2025, the company has set a goal to increase that figure to a full 100%. Coca-Cola has also said it plans to make its packaging using 50% recycled material by 2030. When this three-pillared "World Without Waste" initiative was first announced back in February 2022, it represented industry-leading targets, inspiring competitors like PepsiCo to make similar sustainability pledges. Admirable aspirations ... right? According to nonprofit environmentalist group Oceana, the soda giant hasn't been doing enough lately in the pursuit of its would-be noble goals.

In an open letter to the soda giant on Wednesday, Oceana wrote, "In light of this lack of progress and commitment by the company's bottlers, Oceana is calling on Coca-Cola to disclose its plan for how the company will meet its reuse goal by its 2030 deadline." According to the company's annual sustainability report, around 14% of Coca-Cola drink products were packaged in reusable containers in 2023 — which might seem impressive before realizing that the company was also doing 14% in 2022. In 2020, that figure was 16%, as noted in Oceana's report.

Earlier this year, Coca-Cola tested a Sprite bottle without labels to eliminate one aspect of non-reusable packaging. But, without other action, Oceana has criticized the company's carbon footprint goals as hollow talk and is heavily urging Coca-Cola to honor its commitment. As Oceana Senior Vice President Matt Littlejohn elaborated in the open letter, "The numbers in the company's recent 'Environmental Update' make it clear — Coca-Cola is not on track to meet its reuse goal, which is terrible news for the oceans ... More reusable packaging means less single-use plastic."

Last year, the 2023 Break Free From Plastic brand audit report (which has been "holding the world's worst plastic polluters accountable annually since 2018") named Coca-Cola at the top of the list, noting that "The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, and Nestlé have consistently been in the top four global plastic polluters every year since auditing began six years ago." It's no secret that plastic waste has become a critical issue on a global scale. An April 2024 report published by Science Advances noted that, once plastic waste is produced, it takes a long time to go away, and does a lot of damage to humans, animals, and the planet along the way: "Global plastic production is fundamentally linked to fossil fuel extraction and climate change ... [I]ncreased volumes of plastics and associated chemicals and byproducts [are] released into the environment throughout the plastic life cycle."