Some California environmental groups got a last minute invite to an unusual spectacle taking place on Earth Day to launch Coke's new "plant bottle" packaging for Coca-Cola brand "Dasani" bottled water. The invitation cheers the "exciting packaging advancement" that will allow Coca-Cola to bottle its plain old municipal water without the coke syrup in a bottle that is "made with up to 30 percent plants -- and up to 30 percent less petroleum."
"Although our event is taking place this Friday - and we apologize for the short notice - we really would love to see you there. The event is a fashion show featuring models clad in garments made from plants that cover up to 30 percent of their bodies. The show will be hosted by actor and singer Matthew Morrison from FOX TV's "Glee."
Again, we apologize for the short notice, and we sincerely hope you can fit it into your busy schedule. Please RSVP... "
On behalf of environmentalists in the know about plastic packaging and bottled water, we send our Regrets, as follows:
1. We Regret that while many areas of America face drought, your bottling of municipal water uses three times as much water in the process of bottling it as the amount of water that came from the tap to fill the bottle.
2. We Regret that despite your green leaf logo, your "plant bottle" is still just a PET plastic bottle and is not biodegradable or compostable on land or at sea.
3. We Regret that Coca-Cola will not be collecting and recycling their own PET "plant bottles," and that only approximately 28% of PET bottles are "recycled" (mostly into lower grade material that is not used in bottles again) in America. The remainder, at over 20 billion bottles, last forever in our landfills or in our environment, including our oceans. We also regret that Coca-Cola failed to achieve it's own pledge of using at least 10% recycled content in PET bottles and has just announced the shut down of its PET recycling joint venture in South Carolina.
4. We Regret that Coca-Cola is substituting its chemical-laden petroleum plastic bottle with a chemical-laden petroleum and plant plastic bottle.
5. We Regret that estrogenic compounds in your PET "plant bottles" may leach into the water and impair human health and reproduction.
6. We Regret that advertising has tricked people into believing that bottled water is safer when in fact your product has been recalled for contamination and gets a grade of "D" on Environmental Working Group's evaluation of bottled waters.
7. We Regret that Coca-Cola Corporation has been so slow to properly label the tap water that it bottles.
8. We Regret that single servings of water are sold in disposable packaging that will last longer than any of us will be on this planet, and that future generations will have to deal with our waste.
9. We Regret that you aren't screening the documentaries Tapped and Bag It! at your event.
10. We Regret that Matthew Morrison, a beloved singer and actor, is involved with such a green washing sham. We wish he talked with us first.
And although we appreciate the promise of 30% clad models, we believe it would be more appropriate for your models to be nude, as in "the emperor has no clothes" because this kind of green washing doesn't fool us at all.
Michael F. Jacobson: Coca-Cola's Anniversary: Why I'm Not Celebrating
Appears you are taking the "Margie Phelps" approach to saving the environment.
You have the right idea
Ignorance always wins
America spends one dollar out of every 11 dollars we spend on food, for packaging. Imagine having a domestic packaging material produced here that could put almost 10 percent of Americas food budget back into our domestic economy. The potentials for something so simple as saying no to PLASTIC could change our domestic economic imbalances immensely.
330 million Americans X Average annual expenditure of $4,000 per year on food = 1,320,000,000,000 or (1 Trillion 320 Billion dollars) annually.
By going with an alternative packaging material that was domestically sourced and produced we would redirect 120,000,000,000 or (120 Billion dollars Annually) back into low tech domestic job creation and conversely add 150,000 PRODUCTIVE domestic jobs plus an ancillary 30,000 jobs related to the service of those industrial positions...
We have reusable shopping bags, but sometimes bring home the plastics. I use them to clean the litter boxes. The ones with holes I set aside for knitting projects. It's my goal to no longer rely on acrylics for my projects after I've used up my stash.
I have also seen people using the plastic water bottles as garden planters, or aeration purposes in container gardens.
It's a shame they aren't easy to recycle at a center. It's my hope that the creative and ingenuitive repurposing I've witnessed and participate in helps ease the burden somewhat.
I understand that plastic is safer than broken glass bottles and cheaper than metal 'MUGS: (Plastic minus the carsinogens please)
What I don't understand---how could they think this is a good idea?
www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org and friend us! We will keep you up to date on plastics issues. Also - If you go to my archives on Huff Po you can see many other articles on this subject - Pinkwashing the Dangers of Bottled Water might interest you!
for local errands and hikes, etc., are there any really, truly, plastic-free, non-toxic, no BPA or other chemical re-usable water bottles? i have really been struggling to find one. seems like the BPA free all have some other unknown, possibly scarier, plastic in the lids, liners, etc...
thanks!