Conscious Choice: Coke's Broken Promise

February 2000 | News of the Earth

Coke's Broken Promise | EPA Tier 2

by Dave Aftandilian

Coca-Cola Breaks Recycling Pledge

In December 1990, Coca-Cola Company announced a plan to begin using recycled plastic in its soda bottles in the U.S. Coke’s senior vice president at the time, M. Douglas Ivester, said, "Producing new plastic beverage bottles with a blend of recycled plastic is a significant step ahead in plastics recycling. The technology will allow the‘closed loop’ recycling of our plastic bottles, just as our other suppliers use recycled aluminum and steel for cans and recycled glass for glass bottles." Pepsi made a similar announcement, prompting the New York Times to report: "Coke and Pepsi took their long rivalry to the environmental arena yesterday, with each company saying it would be the first to sell soft drinks in plastic bottles made with materials recycled from used bottles."

Since then Mr. Ivester, who is now Coke’s chairman of the board and CEO, must have changed his mind about the value of plastics recycling, because almost none of the 10 billion plastic bottles Coke sells each year in the U.S. — more than 25 million every day — currently contain any recycled plastic. Why the change of heart? The GrassRoots Recycling Network (GRRN), which began a campaign in 1997 to force Coke to live up to its promise, thinks Coke dropped its voluntary plastic-recycling plans when public interest shifted away from the issue after the garbage crisis of the 1970s and 1980s ended, and the threat of probable state and federal recycling mandates receded.

Whatever the reason, though, the facts are clear — Coke announced its intentions to begin recycling its plastic drink bottles, then reneged on its promise. The results have been disastrous for the plastics-recycling industry. Recycling rates for plastic bottles in the U.S. have plummeted from a high of 50 percent in 1994 (before Coke went back on its word) to 35.6 percent in 1998. That means that two-thirds of the 800 million pounds of petroleum-based virgin PET (#1 plastic) Coke uses to make its plastic bottles each year ends up in landfills. And most of the other third isn’t being recycled by Coke, but by manufacturers of carpet fibers, pallet strapping, and other materials. To make matters worse, from 1995 to 1996, right after Coke scrapped its plastics-recycling plans, the price of virgin PET dropped from 80¢ per pound to 40¢ per pound, which drove the prices paid for a pound of recycled PET down from 20¢ to 4¢, according to GRRN. This meant big profits for Coke, and bankruptcy for a lot of small plastics-recycling firms.

Coca-Cola, of course, has a number of excuses for why it’s not using recycled PET in its U.S. bottles. In response to advocacy ads placed by GRRN in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Sierra last year, Coke has been giving callers to its consumer hotline the impression that it is now using recycled plastic on a regular basis. Not so, according to GRRN; while Coke has resumed testing the use of recycled plastic, it has used just a million pounds of recycled plastic in these tests over twelve months — that’s only 0.125 percent of the PET Coke uses to make bottles each year.

In its reply to letters sent to the company by customers after the GRRN newspaper ads ran last summer, Coke first tries to switch the subject, writing, "Soft drink containers...are America’s most recycled package. In 1997, 58.7 percent of all soft drink containers were recycled." The problem isn’t beverage containers in general; the problem is plastic bottles. Aluminum cans have been recycled for years; about 70 percent of the aluminum in cans is either post-consumer or postindustrial material. And glass bottles, of which Coke is making fewer and fewer, also have significant recycled content. Coke’s plastic bottles, however, do not.

Then there’s the cost issue; Coca-Cola claims that, "because of the additional cleaning and processing necessary to make recovered plastics safe for food use, it costs significantly more to recycle recovered PET into bottles than it does to make as many as 50 new products such as fiber, carpet, and car parts." Here Coke, the producer of so much plastic waste, is trying to shirk its responsibility to find a way to reuse it. The FDA has approved a number of different recycled PET containers for use in food packaging, so the technologies are readily available (Coke must already know about them, too, because it produces plastic bottles with 25 percent recycled content for sale in Australia, Sweden, and Switzerland). One method for blending recycled with virgin PET fibers in the manufacturing of new bottles would cost less than two-tenths of one cent per bottle. Surely Coke can afford that much money to support plastics recycling, especially since the company makes a profit of more than 20¢ per 20-ounce plastic bottle, according to GRRN.

There are plenty more blood pressure-raising quotes on Coke’s web site (www .thecoca-colacompany.com). Here’s one of my favorites: "Our commitment to the environment is based on the principle that we shall conduct our business in ways that protect and preserve our environment. Furthermore, we promote a philosophy of shared responsibility, where all participants in the supply chain accept responsibility for the environmental impacts occurring in their specific part of the chain." How about putting some action where those fancy words are, Coke — or are you exempt from your "philosophy of shared responsibility" when it comes to the waste your billions of plastic bottles produce each year in the U.S.?

Obviously Coca-Cola Company isn’t the only bad guy here; Pepsi’s not doing any better than Coke when it comes to reusing PET in its plastic bottles. But Coke is the soft drink industry leader, with 45 percent of the U.S. market and 50 percent of the world market, compared to Pepsi’s 20 percent global share. Where Coke leads, Pepsi will follow; when Coke starts using recycled PET in its plastic bottles, other companies will too.

But how can we change the practices of a corporate behemoth like Coke? One bottle at a time, says GRRN — either the bottle of Coke you choose not to buy, or the one that you buy or scavenge, rinse out, label with a 55¢ stamp and a message such as "Please Recycle This Plastic into Your Next Plastic Bottle," and return to the company (Coca-Cola, Attn: Mr. M. Douglas Ivester, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, One Coca-Cola Plaza, Atlanta, GA, 30313). A printable label and complete instructions are available on GRRN’s web site (www.grrn.org). You could also send a letter to Coke at the address above, or give its customer service hotline a call at 800-571-2653.

Do boycotts and direct action like this make a difference in correcting the paths of wayward corporations? Absolutely. Just consider the success of Rainforest Action Network’s campaign to force home-improvement stores to phase out the use of old growth wood. On August 26 of 1999, Home Depot responded by pledging to stop selling products made from old growth wood. After a follow-up campaign targeting other home improvement retailers in October, both Wickes and HomeBase agreed to phase out old growth wood as well.

Consumers have one thing corporations can’t live without — dollars. Let’s show them they’ll have to act responsibly to earn our business, starting with a smile and a Coke in a recycled bottle. For more information, you can contact GRRN at 706-613-7121, zerowaste@grrn.org, or www.grrn.org.

New EPA Tier 2 Standards Clean the Air and Save Lives

In its 1996 National Air Quality Trends Report, the EPA found that three in ten Americans were still breathing unhealthy air, despite more than twenty years of protection under the Clean Air Act. Much of the problem is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, which produces tiny particles of soot that can lodge deep in the lungs, as well as chemicals that help form smog (the dirty brown haze that often cloaks cities on sunny summer days). Automobiles, for instance, are responsible for nearly 30 percent of smog-forming pollution.

A number of recent epidemiological studies have uncovered a direct relationship between breathing polluted air and increased incidence of respiratory problems requiring medical treatment, especially for children and the elderly. Researchers at the American Cancer Society and Harvard University, for instance, have shown that residents of more polluted cities had an increased risk of premature death when compared with those living in cleaner cities. Based on the Harvard University data, the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that 64,000 premature deaths from cardiopulmonary causes may be attributed to particulate air pollution each year, or about 6.5 percent of all cardiopulmonary-related deaths; the same data includes estimates that the lives of high-risk patients, such as the elderly and those with heart or lung disease, may be shortened by as much as two years.

In December of 1999, President Clinton announced new Tier 2 air pollution regulations developed by the EPA to help address this public health crisis. Under the new rules, automakers will have to build cleaner vehicles — including sport utility vehicles, pickups, and minivans, which will all be held to the same air pollution standards as cars for the first time — and oil companies will have to refine cleaner gasoline. Unlike the national ambient air quality standards that the EPA released in 1997 (which were overturned by a federal appeals court in May, 1999 in a case brought by a coalition of coal-based utilities, automakers, and the heavily polluting states of Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia), the new rules have met with little opposition from industry groups and have been welcomed by environmentalists. Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said that "implementing these clean car and gasoline standards will do more to cut smog pollution than any action since the 1990 Clean Air Act."

Two factors proved key to the success of the new air quality regulations. First, there was public support; tens of thousands of citizens flooded the White House with letters and postcards demanding stricter public health protections. Second, compromises were made regarding the timetable under which companies will be required to phase in the new standards. For instance, while most oil refineries will be required by 2006 to meet stricter standards for sulfur content of gasoline, some small refineries will be given an extra two years to comply. And the required reductions in nitrous oxide content of automobile exhaust will be phased in from 2004 to 2007 for cars, and from 2007 to 2009 for sport utility vehicles and other "light trucks."

While the new rules will cost automakers and oil companies about $5.3 billion over the next few years — which will be passed along to the consumer in the form of slightly higher prices for new automobiles ($100 added to the price tag of a new car, and an additional $200 for a sport utility vehicle) and gasoline (a couple pennies more per gallon) — the EPA estimates that the new regulations will reduce the nation’s medical bills and other health-related costs by $25.2 billion. More importantly, though, the new standards will save lives; President Clinton claimed that 4,300 premature deaths each year and 173,000 cases of asthma and other respiratory illnesses among children will be eliminated by the revised Tier 2 regulations.

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