The two tobacco companies Altria and Philip Morris International combined made up 2% of the branded plastic litter found, both Danone and Nestlé each produced 3% of it, PepsiCo was responsible for 5% of the discarded packaging, and 11% of branded plastic waste could be traced to the Coca-Cola company.
When I buy a bottle of Coca-Cola I am not actually paying much for the sugary water. I’m paying for the convenience of having it in a bottle.
In my mind, this convenience fee ought to be enough to pay for the convenience of also discarding said bottle. Otherwise, they really sold me the inconvenience of having to deal with the bottle that they use to distribute the sugary water.
So, get on with it, Coca-Cola, clean up your shit. I already paid you.
This is really close to truth. So many of those products producing trash are useless (bottled water) or even actively harmful (soda, cigarettes). You don’t actually need to pay Coca-Cola at all. You just need a reusable bottle and a water fountain or tap.
Coca-Cola and Phillip Morris will not suddenly start being helpful.
In that sense: encourage your municipality, employers, etc. to set up public water fountains and no-smoking zones. (And if you really want sweet drinks, buy syrups.)