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Coca Cola Promotes Use of Plastic for Earth Day?

April 18, 2009 By 17 Comments

I love my Diet Coke, I do. I grew up drinking Coke, I hated “New” Coke, I supplemented my allowance growing up by turning in Coke cans and bottles for a refund.  I have the cutest Christmas ornament a glass coke bottle with real coke in it that I bought 10 years ago.  My mention of my soda of choice even won a solar radio last week:

avatar 3 bigger Coca Cola Promotes Use of Plastic for Earth Day?

Time for a TGIF cocktail-hour #earthtweet giveaway. The following just fits the occasion too perfectly…4/10 #earthtweet winner: RT @EcoOfficeGals sipping my Captain & Diet with my glass straw from @glassdharma dm us with an address; we’ll send you a solar radio from @gaiam! YEAH!!

waterbottles Coca Cola Promotes Use of Plastic for Earth Day?But then as I went through my email yesterday morning, I saw one from My Coke Rewards that really disappointed me.  For anyone that doesn’t know My Coke Rewards are points you can collect from entering codes on the inside of the bottle caps and cases of Coca Cola Products.

So, let me just share this email with you first:

Earth Day is a great time to celebrate the many wonders of the world—like cool, crisp refreshing water. In honor of Mother Nature, you can earn Double Points with DASANI.

April 20th through the 30th, enjoy any 12-pack of DASANI*—then enter your codes to boost your balance with Double Points—it’s a great way to enjoy Earth Day.

Basically, they are encouraging people to buy plastic bottle for Earth Day, and get rewarded for it! PLASTIC BOTTLES!!

From Earth 911:

  • In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each but only recycled an average of 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills.
  • Bottled water costs between $1 and $4 per gallon, and 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.
  • According to the Beverage Marketing Corp, the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976. In 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons.
  • It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture a year’s supply of bottled water. That’s enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.
  • Eight out of 10 plastic water bottles become landfill waste.
  • In 2007 we spent $16 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets.
  • Plastic bottles can take up to 1000 years before they begin to decompose once buried.
  • If everyone in NYC gave up water bottles for one week, they would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled. One month on the same plan would save 112 million bottles, and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.
I don’t usually hash out my issues on this blog, but when so many people are out there trying to do good for Earth Day this is a real insult coming from a HUGE corporation.
I expressed my concern on Twitter to @CocaColaCo, but at quick glance I can see they do not use the platform to monitor customer concerns, but rather to send out periodic promotional blasts.

So, I ask my readers for support. Coca Cola is HUGE, and could really do some GOOD for Earth Day but this is NOT the way to do it!  I am against Coca Cola rewarding people for using plastic bottles in honor of Earth Day, are you?
If so, PLEASE retweet this post, email it, stumble it, blog it, digg it just get it out there in anyway you can! Thank you in advance for your support.

All the best!

BTW: Only a few more days to enter the Green My World Giveaway, OVER $400 in Green Products from sponsors that REALLY want you to celebrate Earth Day the RIGHT way! Be sure to get your entries in!!

Potocredit: psd
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  • http://www.variousthings.net/ air stream

    What you have here is a corporation trying to be green because it’s the “in thing” to do – but really it just shows that selling and promotion is way more important to them than the environment. Sadly thousands of people will be thinking they are helping the environment this way somehow.

  • air stream

    What you have here is a corporation trying to be green because it’s the “in thing” to do – but really it just shows that selling and promotion is way more important to them than the environment. Sadly thousands of people will be thinking they are helping the environment this way somehow.

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  • http://blogs.wolfpawroad.com LoneWolf

    I understand why Coca Cola uses plastic bottles, but promoting them as part of Earth Day is pretty bad. It shows that they don’t get it.

    It reminds me of Pepsi’s “Addiction Research Foundation” a few years back. I always got a laugh out of that one.

    I love Coke, but I need to stop drinking it for my health. It isn’t the healthiest drink in the world. I wish they still used the glass bottles though.

  • http://blogs.wolfpawroad.com/ LoneWolf

    I understand why Coca Cola uses plastic bottles, but promoting them as part of Earth Day is pretty bad. It shows that they don’t get it.

    It reminds me of Pepsi’s “Addiction Research Foundation” a few years back. I always got a laugh out of that one.

    I love Coke, but I need to stop drinking it for my health. It isn’t the healthiest drink in the world. I wish they still used the glass bottles though.

  • http://eco-officegals.com admin

    TY for commenting Chelle!
    You are correct, many people don’t get it and I have seen these coloring pages and such being promoted as well!
    That’s one of the reasons when doing the Green My World giveaway I reached out to companies that are aware of the product, packaging, and there own business routines.
    IMO Try to make Earth Day and everyday about reduction above the other 2 “r”s I mean yes you can reuse and recycle the water bottles, but if you encourage demand then production is increased… then you have to hope the people that buy follow up with the other 2 “r”s.

  • http://eco-officegals.com/ admin

    TY for commenting Chelle!
    You are correct, many people don’t get it and I have seen these coloring pages and such being promoted as well!
    That’s one of the reasons when doing the Green My World giveaway I reached out to companies that are aware of the product, packaging, and there own business routines.
    IMO Try to make Earth Day and everyday about reduction above the other 2 “r”s I mean yes you can reuse and recycle the water bottles, but if you encourage demand then production is increased… then you have to hope the people that buy follow up with the other 2 “r”s.

  • http://eco-officegals.com admin

    You know there have been times that I am out and about and unprepared and thirsty, I do buy the occasional water bottle. BUT Yes, I do feel if people are big on collecting points they will load up. I used collect them, I still have a TON I no longer enter (need to figure if there is a way to recycle or freecycle to someone that will be bothered). The people that may normally, if they buy water, but gallon jugs or what not may go out of their way this month to pick up individual bottle to get the points for Earth Day.

  • http://eco-officegals.com/ admin

    You know there have been times that I am out and about and unprepared and thirsty, I do buy the occasional water bottle. BUT Yes, I do feel if people are big on collecting points they will load up. I used collect them, I still have a TON I no longer enter (need to figure if there is a way to recycle or freecycle to someone that will be bothered). The people that may normally, if they buy water, but gallon jugs or what not may go out of their way this month to pick up individual bottle to get the points for Earth Day.

  • http://loudmom.com Chelle@Parents

    It does seem silly for them to promote it – and I definitely think using reusable plastic bottles makes a heck of a lot more sense. (After all, water is FREE out of your sink!) What you have here is a corporation trying to be green because it’s the “in thing” to do – but really it just shows that selling and promotion is way more important to them than the environment. Sadly thousands of people will be thinking they are helping the environment this way somehow.

    In general, I think a lot of people don’t get earth day at all. I wrote a post about different activities I could do with the kiddos today – and while I was looking for some inspiration I saw so many sites that said “make posters about how much you love the earth” – “print coloring and puzzle pages”. I think “what a bunch of paper being wasted and probably not recycled afterwards”. I signed my son up for the EPA’s kids club last year – no joke they sent us a full sized piece heavy duty paper with 6 small stickers that only took up 1/4 of the page. Scary.

  • http://loudmom.com/ Chelle@Parents

    It does seem silly for them to promote it – and I definitely think using reusable plastic bottles makes a heck of a lot more sense. (After all, water is FREE out of your sink!) What you have here is a corporation trying to be green because it’s the “in thing” to do – but really it just shows that selling and promotion is way more important to them than the environment. Sadly thousands of people will be thinking they are helping the environment this way somehow.

    In general, I think a lot of people don’t get earth day at all. I wrote a post about different activities I could do with the kiddos today – and while I was looking for some inspiration I saw so many sites that said “make posters about how much you love the earth” – “print coloring and puzzle pages”. I think “what a bunch of paper being wasted and probably not recycled afterwards”. I signed my son up for the EPA’s kids club last year – no joke they sent us a full sized piece heavy duty paper with 6 small stickers that only took up 1/4 of the page. Scary.

  • http://thegreenyak.etsy.com The Green Yak on Etsy

    I went to enter an Earth Day giveaway the other night, and the prize was a large package of bottled water. I went “What?” and then read a list of facts about how the bottles were supposed to be greener and less wasteful than normal bottled water. And then I went “WHAT.” Makes no sense to me at all. My reusable bottle seems greener than plastic.

    (on the other hand, if I DID drink bottled water, the urge to win a free case of the stuff would probably be strong)

  • http://thegreenyak.etsy.com/ The Green Yak on Etsy

    I went to enter an Earth Day giveaway the other night, and the prize was a large package of bottled water. I went “What?” and then read a list of facts about how the bottles were supposed to be greener and less wasteful than normal bottled water. And then I went “WHAT.” Makes no sense to me at all. My reusable bottle seems greener than plastic.

    (on the other hand, if I DID drink bottled water, the urge to win a free case of the stuff would probably be strong)

  • http://www.greenandcleanmom.org sommer @greenmom

    This such a joke. What is Coke thinking. Dummies.

  • http://www.greenandcleanmom.org/ sommer @greenmom

    This such a joke. What is Coke thinking. Dummies.