Coca-Cola, the world’s largest beverage company is fighting a worldwide battle against recycling.

Coke says it supports recycling, and it even has a whole website to advertise how much it cares. But all over the world, Coca-Cola opposes public programs that make it easier to recycle plastic bottles.

When a state government in Australia considered creating a 10-cent refund on recycling plastic bottles, Coca-Cola poured money into a misleading campaign to oppose the plan. Then, when common sense won out and the plan passed, Coke immediately sued the government to stop the program.

Coca-Cola has run similar campaigns all over the world, and it won’t stop until we prove once and for all that consumers won’t stand for this madness.

Tell Coca-Cola to drop this ridiculous lawsuit and stop trying to stop recycling programs.

This recycling scheme, which is called a “container deposit” won’t cost Coca-Cola anything. Instead, consumers will pay an extra dime for each bottle, which they can redeem by recycling the used container. Coke claims the program is a tax that hurts its sales, but container deposit programs have been implemented throughout the world, and studies have shown that there’s no evidence for Coke’s argument. Coca-Cola’s crusade against recycling is just knee-jerk anti-environmentalism.

There is lots of evidence that container deposit programs are the single most effective way to get more people to recycle. The container deposit program can increase recycling of plastics by 30 percent: in some areas, 80 percent of bottles are recycled when it’s implemented. The Australian program Coke is suing to stop has already encouraged people to recycle more than 35 million containers since it was implemented

Coca-Cola sells nearly 2 billion bottles every day, and a huge number of these end up littered or in landfills. This is a totally unsustainable level of pollution, and if Coke wants to get serious about sustainability, it needs to start supporting recycling programs, not suing to stop them.

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More information:

Greenpeace Australia: 8 reasons Australia needs a national "cash for containers" scheme.