Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
CEN/David Visnjic_Greenpeace
Greenpeace turned a Coca-Cola factory into a campaign against the use of disposable plastic bottles by fitting a huge vent to the side of the building in which hundreds of bottles were left pouring out and spreading over the ground.
The move comes as Coca-Cola rejected calls by the environmental group to give up on plastic package drinks, saying that the use of either aluminium or glass packaging, as environmentalists suggest, could push up the company’s carbon footprint as well as damage sales.
Coca Cola’s Head of Sustainability Beatriz Perez said that they “won’t be in business if we don’t accommodate consumers.”
She added: “So as we change our bottling infrastructure, move into recycling and innovate, we also have to show the consumer what the opportunities are. They will change with us.”
The company claims it wants to have packaging hundred percent recyclable by 2025, but Greenpeace say this is too little too late.
Lisa Panhuber, who is the consumer expert at Greenpeace Austria, said that up to 300,000 bottles were leaving the Coca-Cola plant in Edelstal where they stage the protest every hour. They added that Coca-Cola created more than a quarter of plastic bottle waste across Austria, and alleged it was active in lobbying against deposit and reusable systems in order to advocate continued use of disposable plastic.
She said: “Coca-Cola is the world’s largest plastic polluter. The group holds more than half of the lemonade market in Austria. With this size and power, the company must finally reduce its garbage dump and initiate a turnover towards reusable bottles.”
The protest action was carried out peacefully and ended peacefully without disrupting production at the plant and Coca-Cola promising to increase the dialogue with Greenpeace to work on solutions.
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