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Coca Cola- Please Go Back to Bottling in Glass to Save the Planet!

Coca Cola- Please Go Back to Bottling in Glass to Save the Planet!

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This petition has been created by James A. and may not represent the views of the Avaaz community.
James A.
started this petition to
Rob Priest,Director Vice President - Operations South Pacific,Coca Cola Amatil, Australia
We, the citizens of Samoa and around the world, are extremely concerned that Coca Cola Amatil recently stopped bottling in reusable glass bottles in Samoa and now import into Samoa huge numbers of single- use plastic bottles from Fiji and New Zealand. While we acknowledge that the transition is to recycle PET globally, plastic is currently not recyclable in Samoa.

Your decision has resulted in:

- staff layovers at a time of real hardship in Samoa due to Covid 19;
- a significant increase in the import of single use plastic bottles into Samoa, which are currently not being recycled in-country and most are unlikely to be recycled until a highly-effective collection system is in place for appropriate disposal, segregation and recycling; 
-the ending of a successful incentive-based mechanism providing cash relief to low-income households, especially youth, to collect and return glass Coke, Sprite and Fanta bottles and redeem the deposit;
- a contradiction in your stated aims to build a “World without Waste” in the name of “resealable bottles” that are likely to be littered, entering land and marine ecosystems;
- a contradiction in Samoa’s national efforts to reduce and phase out plastic.

Beyond the economic factors that have led to this decision, we wish to bring the following environmental and social considerations to your attention:

- for more than 40 years Samoa had been bottling Coca Cola and other beverages in glass bottles in Samoa;
- if you consider their lifetime, returnable and reusable glass bottles have a much lower carbon footprint than plastic as well as being more hygienic and essentially inert and therefore non-toxic. After use they can be repurposed as
crushed glass in concrete production;
- in Samoa approximately 7,000 tonnes of plastic are consumed every year, amounting to around 34kg plastic/per person/year (Asari et al 2019);
- it is estimated that around 12% of the plastic in Samoa is burnt or dumped; ie there is a high littering rate in Samoa and much ends up in the ocean (Asari
et al 2019);
- plastics are the one of the biggest components of our waste and make up around 16% of Samoa’s waste by weight (Asari et al 2019);
- Samoa’s National Waste Management Strategy (2019-2023) has a stated aim of a reduction in plastic pollution and this will require stricter controls on plastic imports;
- in highly developed countries like Australia only around 12% of plastic is recycled (Government of Australia 2017) and the rate in developing countries is far lower;
- in the absence of an effective recycling process in Samoa, most plastic bottles will end up in landfill and/or will be littered;
-plastic breaks down in the environment to produce microplastics that can end up in the food chain and water supply and can harm or kill fish and wildlife and ultimately cause human health problems;
- it is estimated that if business continues as usual there will be more plastic in our oceans by weight in 2050 than fish (Ellen MacArthur Foundation).

As the largest plastic bottle producer in the world, producing around 200,000 single use plastic bottles a minute, or over 100 billion plastic bottles/year, billions of which end up as litter, we implore Coca Cola Amatil to reverse this decision and to resume glass bottling in Samoa. While we understand that Coca Cola Amatil supports recycling efforts, how many years will it be before Samoa has an effective recycling system in place where most of the PET bottles are actually recycled and do not enter the environment?

Coca Cola has the opportunity to prove the commitment to your own journey towards “A World Without Waste”, leading to corporate social and environmental responsibility to protect public and ecosystem health, especially in the context of vulnerable Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and to meet Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG 12 “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”. 

With appreciation for your reconsideration, we sign this petition with the hope that we can work together in a coordinated, consistent and holistic way to safeguard our vulnerable islands from the increasing threat of plastic and other forms of pollution. 
Posted (Updated )