Take a Sip of Skepticism: Coca Cola PET Bottles

The Coca Cola company recently released its newest attempt to convince the public its green.

“The first ever recyclable PET plastic beverage bottle made partly from plants. PlantBottle packaging looks, functions and recycles just like traditional PET plastic, but does so with a lighter footprint on the planet and its scarce resources.”

To break it down, the DASANI PlantBottle uses 30% ‘plant-based’ material to replace non-renewable petroleum & fossil-fuel based resources, to “save our world’s precious resources.”

The fact of the matter is that this attempt presents more questions than it does answers…here are a few of mine.

1. What are these mysterious ‘renewable plant-based materials’ replacing PET bottles? What species?

What sort of impact is it having on the ‘plant’ species? Is it plant waste? Just looking for a clarification.

2. When referring to ‘saving our world’s precious resources,’ it seems to me that the ‘precious’ resources being saved are actually the petroleum and fossil fuel based resources. The delightfully vague nature of the word ‘resource’ allows for misinterpretation with a hint of greenwash.

3. ~2 billion PlantBottle on shelves to cut environmental impact? What sort of demand are they going to incur on these ‘plant-based’ resources to meet this demand? Will it overstretch the supply?

PlantBottle

4. 30% renewable, 100% recyclable. Since when was bottle packaging not 100% recyclable? Now all of a sudden its a marketable attribute?

5. Funny how they launch the efforts for PlantBottle on their Dasani water line. Water, out of all the coca-cola products, is the product that shouldn’t be packaged in bottles in the first place. Why aim for 100% renewable and recyclable water bottles instead of investing in endeavors to eliminate the demand for bottled water altogether–incentivizing the purchase of reusable bottles, investing in water purification or treatment plants?

It is hard not to be skeptical of a corporation as large as the Coca Cola company, and it does seem like they are taking strides in the right direction. But we must never forget the almighty power of Greenwash, and never forget to ask questions.