Page 23 - Plastics News April 2017

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The report also called light-weighting a “red herring” when on 9 April in protest against what it described as “ocean
it comes to the issue of ocean plastics. Lighter weight plastic pollution.”
bottles, the group said, are still a problem in the ocean.
“As the world’s largest soft drinks company, Coca-
On the positive side, the report states that the soft drink Cola has a special responsibility for the plastic that
industry “has made gains in removing so called ‘problem is wrecking our oceans,” the campaigner group said.
plastics’ from their drink bottles — [for example] plastics According to Greenpeace data, Coke produces over 100
that cannot be recycled, or are particularly toxic. For billion “throwaway” plastic bottles every year, which the
instance, companies have taken steps to switch to more campaigner group said mostly fails to be recovered.
recyclable bottle caps, and phase out PVC sleeves and Single-use plastic bottles, said Greenpeace, make up
labels that are difficult to recycle.”
nearly 60 percent of all the drinks packaging Coke sells
Greenpeace wants the industry to prioritize reusable around the world. “And these throwaway bottles are
packaging and develop delivery systems based on reuse. on the rise. Single-use plastic bottles make up 12
The group wants all packaging to be made from 100 percent more of Coca-Cola’s packaging than they did a
percent post-consumer plastic, and seeks disclosure of the decade ago, while the proportion of refillable
amount of plastic each company uses, reuses and recycles. containers has dropped from just under a third to just a
quarter,” the group claimed. Greenpeace also claimed
Gary Hemphill, managing director of research at
Beverage Marketing Corp., indicated that plastic accounts that Coca-Cola was “less than halfway” towards its
for about 32 percent of all packaged soft drink product on 2015 target to use 25 percent of recycled or renewable
a unit basis. Environmental campaigners have urged Coca- sources for the production of its bottles. The recycled
Cola Co. to reduce its plastic footprint by stopping the use content figure, said Greenpeace, currently stands
of single-use plastic bottles. Greenpeace installed a “piece at 7 percent on average across Coca-Cola’s global
of art right” to the doorstep of Coca-Cola’s European office plastic bottle sales.

23 April 2017 | Plastics News