Greenpeace releases spoof ad linking Coke litter to death of sea birds
Greenpeace has targeted Coca-Cola’s Australian distributor for its opposition to a container deposit recycling scheme with a graphic television commercial linking plastic pollution to the death of wildlife.
The video, a spoof of Coca-Cola adverts featuring youngsters drinking the beverage, while seabirds fall to the ground dying, has been released by Greenpeace.
Greenpeace’s beef with Coca-Cola Amatil stems from Coke’s decision to go against plans to introduce a container deposit scheme in Australia. Coke, along with drink firms Lion and Schweppes, took the Australian government to court to challenge the legal validity of the container deposit scheme and, earlier this year, the Federal Court ruled in its favour.
‘Sustainability is good for business’
In his speech at Coca-Cola Amatil’s AGM yesterday (7 May), David Gonski denied that the company was against recycling.
In his speech, he said: “It’s time to set the record straight and correct the claim being made by some that Coca-Cola Amatil is somehow anti-recycling. Or that we put profits before our environmental responsibilities. Let me make this very clear – sustainability is good for business.
“Reducing the volume of packaging we use benefits not only the environment but our bottom line. Ensuring a sustainable source of packaging material by encouraging recycling and developing renewable forms of packaging makes sense to a business that has been around for more than 100 years and intends to around for many more. Our biggest capital investment in recent years – $450 million – has been into equipment that enables us to make all our PET bottles lighter, using less plastic, so they have a lighter carbon footprint.
“In fact we are making the lightest weight PET bottles in the global Coca-Cola System– saving thousands of tonnes of PET resin. And when it comes to recycling – I want you all to understand that we support recycling and have done so for decades.
“We support a national, industry-funded recycling system which targets all litter, not just drink containers. We do not support container deposit schemes because they are old-fashioned, inefficient and very costly for families.”
