Coca-Cola named world’s worst plastic polluter for third straight year | Hacker News Reader

Coca-Cola named world’s worst plastic polluter for third straight year

independent.co.uk

169 pointselorant102 comments

I'm confused how this is anything other than "Coca-Cola the worlds most popular beverage maker"

Coca-Cola didn't do anything to put that garbage there, people who consumed their product did.

Good point, I agree the onus is partially upon consumers.

That said, glass bottles are an option.

At least with glass eventually we'd get "beach glass". (I don't think making glass and handling glass and so on that much more environmentally friendly than plastics are.

Please take 10 minutes to educate yourself on this topic.

https://apps.npr.org/plastics-recycling

https://lbre.stanford.edu/pssistanford-recycling/frequently-...

That’s very condescending

No, it isn't.

Please do not use this kind of language when talking to any other humans.

Whats wrong with the laguage?

The smug moral superiority of the "educate yourself" trope is the problem.

I actually found the second link quite informative. I'm quite willing to admit that I was ignorant to the fact that different types of glass are not recyclable (or at least not easily so).

It doesn't help when comments like this are flagged. People need to get over their insecurities.

Or just reuse the bottle

They use plastic bottles instead of alternatives. I'm not saying consumers don't have responsibility, but it starts with coca cola ordering/producing these bottles to package their product.

Then why are they being singled out? Plenty of other companies use plastic just as much in their products.

They have the biggest brand. Brand shaming could lead to change not just them but ripple effect on other plastic using companies.

Because they are the biggest offenders, for three years running. Rather than trying to target the abstract 'beverage industry' as a whole, it's much more pragmatic to just look at the biggest players. Besides, they tend to set trends so there's a little bit of top-down influence as well in being the industry leader.

Coca-Cola privatises the profits from sales and socialises the plastic costs.

Even if people don't litter, there are landfills increasingly filling with plastic not being reused. The solution is quite mundane, a plastic bottle tax to pay for processing it. People litter and makes processing cost more? Increase tax.

They need to figure out ways to reduce this tax burden beyond lobbying. Ie campaign to avoid littering, glass bottles, etc. Currently they wage multi million campaigns against this simple tax all over the world, even in Australia where tax is 10c per bottle.

Glass bottles are arguably worse for the environment.

More drink foundations where you bring your own bottle, and more convenient recycling options (smart bins everywhere that credit you 10c for every bottle you deposit... then raise this to 15c, 25c, etc).

I imagine the 10c doesn't encourage as many people as a +1 public recycling score on one of your social media profiles would.

In Finland almost every single can, and drinks bottle, has a corresponding price printed on it, ranging from €0.10 to €0.25. You can return them at almost any local store and receive cash.

There are hundreds of unemployed/retired/homeless people who scour parks, and the city centers, collecting these discarded containers and recycling them for the money.

The return rate is pretty high, even with the tiny amount of money per-item.

Hey students looking for extra cash do this often too!!

Note that the "homeless" people in Finland are mainly people who refuse to accept support from the social welfare, this is because they prefer to get drunk instead of spending it on food and rent. The social welfare eventually suggests a different system for such people: pay the rent for them and give a special card that can be used for anything except alcohol and cigarette. If the people keep refusing that other option, then they went homeless on their own accord and keep spending the welfare on alcohol and living on the streets. Such people are very rare in Finland in reality however, but they do exist.

There is also one woman [1] who for whatever reason chooses to live homeless with bunch of luggage. She doesn't drink at all, and keeps moving from town to town with all her luggage, by walking.

Here's also a discussion about the Romanian beggars you see in Helsinki streets. [2]

1: https://shl.fi/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2935.jpg

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/comments/79mqjs/question_ab...

I heard that too! How I wish that my country will do the same thing.

It's cheaper both economically and energy-efficent to just produce new glass bottles rather than to sort, clean, crush and melt old ones.

Why not clean then reuse the glass bottles (skipping crush, melt and fabricating)? This is what was done up until the 80s.

This is still done in Germany to a fairly large part, be it glass or reusable plastic bottles. An argument I've heard from the company producing one-time-plastic bottles for the Schwarz Group:

- Lots of chemistry and treatment is needed to clean used bottles. - It is logistically more efficient to crush one-time-plastic bottles instead of moving around trucks with plastic bottles or heavy glass bottles.

Logistically more efficient but what about the complete environmental impact? Are they also considering the costs of disposing of this plastic? Aren't trucks driving around empty half the time anyway? Can the grocery truck just haul empties back to the distribution center where they are handed back to the trucks from the manufacturer?

I just started getting glass milk bottles in the store here in Arkansas that I can return for a $2 deposit. Very happy about this and hope it becomes more popular (again, well not sure if the US ever did it).

That doesn’t take into account the economic costs Of a degraded environment or oceans gyres filled with plastic. It ignores the externalities.

Why point the tax specifically at bottles and not other plastics? Does the plastic used in bottles have some special chemical property that makes it more harmful to the environment?

Sure, tax all disposable plastics, or better yet, tax all disposable products, or even better yet tax products based on their durability. The point is use a regulatory mechanism to correct a market failing.

The solution isn’t a tax but a deposit you get back for bringing back the bottles. It worked greatly for Germany and other European countries, but Coca Cola is heavily lobbying against similar laws.

Seems like we need both? A deposit encourages people to return the container responsibly but the product price still needs to accurately reflect the externalities. If the container is easier to reuse or recycle then the tax can be less.

You could just ignore the whole incentive thing and demand more recycling.

Here in denmark we still allow Coca-Cola to externalize the cost, but then we have a public system that collects and recycles/reuses the bottles, Funded by taxes (who cares which ones). In this way the product price still doesn't reflect the true cost, but at least the bottles get recycled.

Well everyone should care which taxes because that drives incentives.

Recycling is not ecologically free. If we are going to keep living on this planet we need to incentivize sustainable practices. Specific tax policies can help make those practices economically feasible.

If your grid is clean and you use a utility tax to fund recycling then you have inflated the cost of renewable energy and subsidized plastic.

How about just bringing it back without a tax? Works pretty good in Switzerland...

Agreed on the deposit. We had that in Oregon and it worked wonders because the homeless would collect discarded bottles and get enough money for dinner off of them.

For two

- Coke changed from glass bottle to plastic bottle. Or they popularized plastic bottle to put in another way

- They launched campaign to "recycle" bottles. So people focus less on consuming "less" bottles

From Citizen Coke https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28789663-citizen-coke

The "individual responsibility" argument, going back to 1970s anti-littering campaigns and the crying (fake) Indian (fake) TV advert (and before), are corporate gambits to shirk their own obligations:

Annie Leonard, "Moving from Individual Change to Societal Change" (2013) [pdf]

http://www.pfree.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Moving-fro...

I see your point, but ultimately it's down to you to see that your can ends up in the bin. I think these bottlers latch on to that argument because it's intuitive and pretty reasonable

Framing environmental deterioration as the result of poor individual choices—littering, leaving the lights on when we leave a room, failing to car-pool—not only distracts us from identifying and demanding change from the real drivers of environmental decline. It also removes these issues from the political realm to the personal, implying that the solution is in our personal choices rather than in better policies, business practices, and structural context.

-- Annie Leonard

From the article linked above.

I read the article, what I'm saying is that it's a go-to argument for these companies because there's truth to it, and when taken at face-value it's really not that audacious to say, "people ought to recycle the containers they buy".

Is that sentiment exploited by Coca-Cola and others in a way that makes it encompass more than it really does? Of course. But if it was an all-around flimsy argument then it wouldn't be "ol' faithful", they'd just find a different argument to use instead.

Re-read the passage I quote: the tactic reverses culpability, distracts, projects blame, and results in toxic and divisive holier-than-thou purity tests among and against those advocating for change.

At the same time greater effectiveness or the sham appearance of same of recycling or reduction decreases pressures on the packaging industry and those selling goods utilising them, but actually makes the practice more attractive vs. sustainable or less polluting alternatives.

And the message resonates through simplicity and guilt, and advertising budgets. Just because a model is simple and transmits readily does not mean it is correct.

Are you implying that there’s no causality between producing billions of plastic bottles and said bottles ending up all over the place?

That's not entirely correct.

The Intercept published this article last year [1] with leaked audios showing how Coca Cola undermines efforts to make things better while blaming the customers. It is a great read with plenty of sources.

Coca Cola might not have put that garbage there themselves, but they have actively fought efforts to make the consumer behave better. That's almost as bad.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2019/10/18/coca-cola-recycling-plas...

I think when you manufacture plastic bottles at the sort of volume Coca-Cola does and distribute them across the globe indiscriminately, you would have to know that some percentage of your product would not be disposed of responsibly (humans being imperfect creatures and all). You would have to be ok with that outcome, and yet go ahead with manufacturing anyway. I believe that makes them partly responsible.

In Denmark, you pay a little extra for the bottle itself when you buy a soda, you get that money back when you return the bottle to the store for recycling. This provides a nice enough incentive for people to generally not throw bottles, and it provides an nice extra income for kids and others who collect the bottles that do get tossed. I bought my first ethernet card with money spent collecting bottles at a concert (I hauled 4 large trash bags, worth about $100 in a single evening).

I don't get why this is not how everybody does it.

Every state I've lived in in the US is the same way, except virtually no one still bothers

Sounds like they should raise the bond, then?

This is exactly how I got pinball money as a kid.

Kids today could collect bottles and aluminum cans for money, but for many the payback is too little. Who wants to slog through ditches to make quarters when the iPhone brings entertainment to you for free?

[downvoters: care to explain what is wrong with asking this question? I’ve received quite a few downvotes since asking this (the points have gone up and down) yet no-one has tried to explain why they object to asking the question. Seems there’s lots of ideological downvoting going on.]

"Disposable plastic is bad" is one of those things "everybody knows", that tends to be just accepted as true.

Are there rigorous arguments for it being bad? The common arguments against them tend to be fairly shallow, IMO.

I've heard that the actual issue is mostly poor waste management and recycling practices in certain countries and on ships, and that landfill isn't really a bad thing.

I'm willing to hear arguments against disposable plastic.

i’m no export so there will be no citations. i was just thinking, the current state of plastics is they pollute oceans and jeopardize entire ecosystems. and they’re made from oil.

an idealized argument for how, strictly speaking, this outcome doesn’t have to be the case, is not really that useful?

we don’t really recycle plastics because it’s cheaper to just make new plastics. saying all we have to do is recycle plastics is not an actual economic solution?

i never comment anymore. thought i’d give it a shot heh

Thank you for the response.

What I’ve heard is that plastics don’t pollute, per se, its poor waste management practices. When those practices are sufficient the plastic isn’t an issue (or is much less of an issue).

https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution#where-does-our-...

The summary of those details from that document:

“However, it is the management of plastic waste that determines the risk of plastic entering the ocean. High-income countries have very effect waste management systems; mismanaged waste – and plastic that ends up in the oceans – is therefore very rare. Poor waste management across many middle- and low-income countries means that these are the main sources of global ocean plastic pollution This makes the improvement of waste management systems across the world critical to reducing plastic pollution. An estimated 20 percent of all plastic waste in the oceans comes from marine sources. In some regions, marine sources dominate: More than half of plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) come from fishing nets, ropes and lines”.

If this is true, then the best way to address the pollution would be to address those poor practices.

that’s helpful information to think about! thanks. in other words, there are things we can do to manage the situation we’re in.

i kind of assume you’re familiar with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714880 so that’s why i suppose i’m necessarily oriented more toward an economic-based view/incentive solution. because this plastic problem is economic capitalistic abuse/exploitation.

i didn’t downvote you btw but i think your initial comment is triggering because like... nobody needs the absurds amount of shitty disposable plastic crap being created. it’s cheap and people can make a buck and it’s simple as that.

anyway, thanks for the link!

I think these have been repeated over and over again, but:

* We don't really know what the long tail of plastic in the environment looks like. It could be relatively benign, but we're painting ourselves into a corner in terms of long-term management with our current rate of plastic production.

* Plastic is a petrochemical product. Like all petrochemical products its extraction and production steps are environmentally devastating, even if the end material is relatively inert. We also like to produce it in countries with poor environmental and safety controls.

* Current policies for managing plastic waste fall into two categories: we either put it in a hole and forget about it (see the long tail point above) or we externalize it to a significantly poorer country for "recycling" (read: dumping into waterways, burning as trash, putting in their own holes in the ground). The former is an unknown, the later is bad and unsustainable.

Thanks for the response.

> * We don't really know what the long tail of plastic in the environment looks like.

See my response to another reply - the problem with plastic in the environment seems primarily to do with poor waste management practices. They seem to be a better thing to address to address this issue.

Could there be long tail impacts? I don’t know, but “we don’t know” is not a terribly strong argument. Surely that could also be said for lots of things other than plastic.

> * Plastic is a petrochemical product. Like all petrochemical products its extraction and production steps are environmentally devastating

That seems a plausible concern. We’d have to see the specific evidence about just how damaging that is, and how damaging it is relative to the alternatives.

> * Current policies for managing plastic waste fall into two categories: we either put it in a hole and forget about it (see the long tail point above)

I’ve hear that this isn’t actually a bad thing. For one thing, it’s localized (as in concentrated in specific areas). And surely there are ways of ensuring minimal leaching of ‘bad things’ in surrounds (potential eg: choosing a spot with appropriate groundwater).

> or we externalize it to a significantly poorer country for "recycling" (read: dumping into waterways, burning as trash, putting in their own holes in the ground). The former is an unknown, the later is bad and unsustainable

But then why aren’t these specific issues being targeted rather than plastics per se?

I think this is going to go down a hole of defending environental claims that have already achieved consensus in the scientific community, so I'm going to limit my response to one point:

"Specific issues" are inseparable from waste production, and particularly plastic production, as a whole. Coming up with good ways to manage plastic (because we do need plastic) would be less of a problem if we produced less of it.

> I think this is going to go down a hole of defending environental claims that have already achieved consensus in the scientific community

(emphasis added)

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for - rigorous evidence and arguments. But not abstract claims that they exist, the actual specific evidence/arguments themselves.

You asked about downvoting so I'll just say its is a bit silly to even try and play devils advocate on this topic. Expecting "rigorous evidence" and not accepting common sense deserves a downvote

There's plenty of evidence that "common sense" is often wrong.

If "common sense" is correct, it should be easy to provide a solid argument, backed up with data, that shows the "common sense" view is correct.

And I've repeatedly shown the details of poor waste management seeming to be the actual issue that needs to be addressed: https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution

> An estimated 20 percent of all plastic waste in the oceans comes from marine sources. In some regions, marine sources dominate: More than half of plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) come from fishing nets, ropes and lines

"Marine sources" is an interesting phrase but I assume it refers to human rather than natural sources - presumably the source of the nets is fishing vessels and there may be a lot of other plastic that is dropped or dumped from ships directly into the ocean:

https://phys.org/news/2019-09-ocean-plastic-ships.html

That is my understanding as well.

Common sense does not mean uninformed. Informed does not mean correct. Correct doesn’t mean right. You’re view is very black/white.

This is the type of “is climate change real” argument that distracts people and governments for decades while big oil is doing it’s thing. Same thing happened with big tobacco. People centuries ago knew smoking was unhealthy but we didn’t have the science to prove it until 20th century. Were they wrong? Maybe right-wrong didn’t matter and not smoking was just the prudent action to take.

> Common sense does not mean uninformed. Informed does not mean correct. Correct doesn’t mean right. You’re view is very black/white.

Don't put strawman words into my mouth. You know I said "There's plenty of evidence that "common sense" is often wrong."

There is plenty of evidence that "common sense" is often wrong. You can pretty much say that the whole history of scientific advancements has been about challenging "common sense". I think you need to read a lot more about science and history.

I didn’t put word in your mouth. Every thing I said is from my point of view. Alas, I think you’re just here to argue. Bye

You reply implied I had said things I didn’t.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

[edit: this by itself isn’t an an argument against plastics. See the provided link with details about poor waste management practices (such as in marine vessels and certain countries). They appear to be the issue, not plastics per se]

That might be a serious issue, but simply mentioning it isn’t a serious argument against plastics themselves. See https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution

Many plastics are known endocrine disruptors. They mimic estrogen and their exact effects on the human body are unknown. But because of the nature of plastics, the don't decompose but just break down into smaller and smaller pieces. They find microplastics everywhere they look. In the Mariana Trench and on Mt Everest[1], and in 90% of table salt tested[2]. One recent study says the average person consumes about a credit card sized amount of microplastics every year[3]. While we're not certain it's dangerous, there are a lot of reasons to be very concerned

Edit: And just To make it clear, in my mind the danger is just about certain. I'm speaking conservatively with my claims, but I really believe this is a large concern. Especially for developing kids and teens.

1- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microplastics-pol...

2- https://www.google.com/amp/s/api.nationalgeographic.com/dist.... (Amp to get around reading limit;)

3-https://qz.com/1644802/you-eat-5-grams-of-plastic-per-week/

So, plastics are the actual "soy" right wingers were talking about.

I appreciate the reply. I’ve given reasons in other responses that (it seems) the way to address this is to address poor waste management practices. That they’re the problem, not plastics per se.

I'm not convinced this will work. Clearly it hasn't yet. Some people just can't be trusted to be responsible. Rather than teach people to be responsible with plastic, the most responsible thing might be to just put less out these. But I see where you're coming from. I think that can work in certain areas, maybe the more well to do ones

Plastics create the management issue in the first place. That’s ok, we get value from plastics, so you’re right in that we can just better manage the plastic problem and have less of a problem. but the plastic problem, even if reduced, still scales with net plastic creation.

I can agree with you fully, and still think it’s a good idea to reduce plastic creation.

i’m curious why you don’t think it’s a reasonable value to also reduce plastics? if we tackle from both sides it’s even more effective.

(btw sorry i cannot give you what you want in terms of rigorous scientific proofs, i’m a philosophizer)

> i’m curious why you don’t think it’s a reasonable value to also reduce plastics?

If they’re not actually the problem, then why reduce them? Lots of things would be bad if sufficient quantities got into the environment, but we manage them well to avoid that, so don't consider them problems.

But say they are somewhat of a problem, we have to ask how much, and how this compares to alternatives. People talk of things like glass. But they tend to just imply that glass is better. Is it? For example, I think it requires much more energy to produce (and possibly to recycle). It’s heavier, so that means more energy used to transport it. I don’t know myself what the exact tradefoffs are. Again, I’d like to see rigorous arguments/evidence.

Microplastics are in literally every synthetic clothing item we wear. I don't see us ever getting rid, or cutting down on microplastics if thousands of companies, even self-proclaimed eco-friendly ones, sell these as their main product.

https://www.patagonia.com/stories/an-update-on-microfiber-po...

Disposable plastic bags have been banned from super markets in many countries. The same could be done for plastic bottles.

I think it's pretty well accepted at this point that this is an unsustainable trend. I'm not sure why glass isn't used more as an alternative, I'd assume cost and convenience. But it might be more expensive for us not to make the switch in the long run

Sadly glass costs more, is more breakable and is quite heavy relative to its contents and therefore leads to higher CO2 emissions.

Glass is also theoretically close-loop recyclable but it's again cumbersome and expensive. It's usually downcycled into building materials.

My local area has even stopped recycling glass citing costs.

Mine as well, which surprised me since I thought that glass (probably separated by colour) was one of, if not the only, material that was less costly to recycle than make from scratch.

I'm already skeptical of the overall impact of recycling in general; I feel as though it makes people feel like they're helping the environment while turning attention away from the mass polluters. I'm definitely cynical, but I'd really like to be proven wrong on that last point.

Sterilize-and-reuse programs for glass bottles are excellent, but they are rare. In theory melting down used glass for inclusion in new glass production is an energy win, but it seems to be rarely used in practice. About the best most glass "recycling" seems to do is mix crushed glass into gravel and paving materials.

Disposible bags were banned from stores in california, they were replaced by significantly heavier bags made of the same plastic but thicker. Now many stores have pandemic signs “no reusable bags”.

So the outcome of banning disposable bags is a whole lot of extra plastic being disposed.

I live in California and the reality is that most people bring bags with them rather than paying for the reusable ones every time, which was the objective of the law. Safeway and other supermarkets banned reusable bags briefly at the start of the pandemic but they've allowed them for months now.

Since I grew up in a state where you got free plastic bags, and went to college in another such state, it took some adjustment. But it's not really that hard - pretty soon you just remember to bring a bag when you're shopping, in the same way that you might remember to bring your wallet.

>they've allowed them for months now.

It's very hit or miss. When I go to Ralph's by me during the day, they say no reusable bags. When I go at night they're fine with it. My Trader Joe's only allows reusable bags if you bag the groceries yourself; the employees aren't supposed to touch them

It is like the other commenter said, hit or miss. More importantly, sanitizing trumps rules. It is simply a bad idea in a pandemic to carry around and re-use plastic bags. Lowering the surface area of potential contact is important.

What are you gonna use instead?

We drink aluminum cans in cardboard cases. Then trade in the empty cans for cash. No plastic needed.

Sorry if this is nitpicking but isn't there a plastic liner in soda cans?

It's funny to me the alternative is already widely distributed by the same company.

The liner gets incinerated when the can is recycled whereas PET bottles get shredded and mixed into other products without the air pollution.

I even prefer the taste

But aluminium is even worse. The co2 footprint is many times worse than Glas or even plastic.

It is interesting to note that Coke yields a more negative impact, overall, than even “bad” tobacco companies - yet the ESG Funds rush to Coke for inclusion in their ‘sustainable company’ funds...

ESG is mostly a marketing gimmick and at least now are virtually indistinguishable from regular funds.

> In its annual audit of plastic waste found on beaches, rivers, parks and communities across the globe

> The project, which is undertaken by 15,000 volunteers

What an interesting way to conduct the study.

A bit biased towards things consumed at beaches, rivers, parks and communities

Perhaps bottle deposits need to increase enough to make them care, for starters. It needs to be cheaper for them to do the "right thing", whatever way that takes.

Coca Cola is in the plastic bottle business plain and simple.

They get the water for free after all

Coca-cola should be required to bottle their products in glass.

Sometimes the answer to these problems are that straight forward.

How does this solve the problem? Glass has huge costs to recycle as well. It seems the major benefit here is that there is less environmental impact if it gets tossed into the sea? Of course this has other issues such as breaking and cutting people.

IIRC glass only breaks out ahead if you reuse it. This is why you will often see coke in glass bottles in European bars, they are collected and sent back for reuse so it makes economical and environmental impact.

The worst polluters are the customers....

noone wants to take credit, I see.

Greenpeace at it again!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com