Greenpeace Aotearoa is calling out the “blatant greenwashing” by Coca-Cola after the world’s biggest plastic polluter announced it will replace its green bottles with clear plastic.
The company revealed its plans today, saying clear bottles are easier to recycle into new bottles. The change in New Zealand will affect all pack sizes of Sprite Classic bottles in PET plastic packaging.
PETITION: Ban the bottle
Greenpeace Aotearoa plastics campaigner Juressa Lee says the announcement is blatant greenwash from a company that has been the biggest global plastic polluter for the last five years.
“Global brand audits repeatedly identify Coca-Cola as the biggest plastic polluter in the world. This is yet another attempt to greenwash the destruction they’re causing. Real action on the plastic pollution crisis, which is in turn fueling the climate crisis, is turning the tap off on plastic production and shifting to refill and reuse.”
“We know that only about 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled. We can’t recycle our way out of this mess, and downcycling into carpet and clothing only delays the inevitable. Plastic doesn’t go away, and it will eventually break down into microplastics that end up in our air, food and even in our bodies and breast milk.”
The change from Coca-Cola is expected to be complete in Aotearoa by June this year.
While companies like Coca-Cola continue to accelerate the plastic pollution crisis, selling around one billion single-use plastic bottles in New Zealand every year, there is a public mandate to ban single-use plastic bottles.
More than 100,000 people from around Aotearoa have signed a Greenpeace petition calling for the government to ban all single-use plastic bottles now and to implement refill and reuse systems.
Call on the NZ Government to ban unnecessary single-use plastic bottles* in NZ, and to incentivise reusable and refillable alternatives.
