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A mountain girl who wants to be big in the city. She likes to travel and explore, so she is passionate about making real stories. The key to asking questions through her editing skills is the way she repays the credibility of journalism.
He is a greedy reader and likes to read the world. Research and fact checking are his areas of work. He likes to think before talking.
The soft drink industry produces 470 billion plastic bottles each year, designed for one-time use. Coca-Cola produced a quarter of this; nearly half of the Coke bottles were dumped, burned or littered.
In the 1950s, Coca-Cola used glass bottles, and customers usually got 2 cents back when they returned the bottle. Coca-Cola used to collect bottles and reuse them. The company spent a considerable amount of money in the entire process of collecting used empty bottles, bringing them back, cleaning and refilling. When Coca-Cola started using disposable plastic bottles, they realized that they could reduce the cost of managing municipalities. In the 1970s, Coca-Cola advertised the benefits of plastic.
Disposable plastic bottles can save a lot of production costs. Coca-Cola owns hundreds of brands such as Fanta and Sprite, and 55 bottled water brands. They use 3,500 plastic bottles per second, and approximately 2,00,000 plastic bottles per minute. Coca-Cola products are sold in almost every country, generating annual profits of 20 billion U.S. dollars each year.
Uganda is a country in East Africa and has the largest and freshest Lake Victoria. It is one of the Great Lakes of Africa named after Queen Victoria. Due to plastic pollution, it is on the road to destruction. Uganda, known as an African power, is losing its identity because they are losing Lake Victoria. In Uganda, only 6% of plastic waste is collected for recycling. More than three-quarters of all Coca-Cola products sold in Uganda are in single-use plastic bottles. According to Coca-Cola's panoramic analysis, since 2018, 156 billion plastic bottles have been incinerated, littered or buried in landfills.
In 2018, Coca-Cola launched a campaign called "No Waste in the World". This is an ambitious environmental plan to make packaging 100% recyclable by 2025 and ensure that 50% of packaging is made of recycled materials by 2030 production.
Apia Samoa, also known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai’i and Upolu). The capital is Apia. In February of this year, Coca-Cola closed its soda glass bottling line in Samoa and began to introduce thousands of plastic bottles. Within a few days, Samoa began to throw bottles, and Samoa did not have a recycling plant.
"The population of southwestern Samoa is only 2,00,000 people because we do not produce enough waste because there are no recycling facilities here. Such facilities usually exist in developed countries or countries with larger populations. Our charity received it The $40,000 coke donation, but it’s not enough to export a waste container from the island. Profits are significantly reduced because shipping costs are expensive and charities must pay for other expenses, such as hiring girls to clean and process plastic,” Marina said, she runs According to a report by the BBC, a charity collects recyclable materials for export in Samoa.
The plastic problem is not only related to Coke. The entire soft drink industry is facing recycling problems. Competitors such as Pepsi and bottled water producer Dannon do not disclose their collection and recycling rates, while Coke does. Coca-Cola’s annual report shows that they sold 112 billion single-use plastic bottles last year, which is equivalent to 14 for every person on the planet, but only 56% of plastic bottles are sent to recycling plants, which means that about 49 billion plastic bottles are not Be recycled.
"The problem is that we do not have enough collection not only in developing countries, but also in the United States and Asia. We even need to collect bottles before considering recycling," said Reloop recycling expert and CEO Clarisa Moravsky.
The speed of collecting PET bottles varies greatly around the world; for example, in the European Union, Germany collects 98% of bottles, Finland 94%, Croatia 89%, Denmark 87%, and the UK only 57%. Poorer countries have a much higher worst rate in collection.
Dumaguete is a city on Negros Island in the southern Philippines, and it is also the oldest market for Coca-Cola in Asia. Almost all soft drink bottles and bottled water and salt are made with cola. The Philippines is struggling to deal with plastic pollution caused by single-use plastics. According to The Coca-Cola Company, only one-fifth of the PET bottles sold in the Philippines in 2019 were collected for recycling. Half of the Coke bottles are refillable glass bottles, and plastic bottles are getting smaller and smaller. The latest version is only 200 ml.
"All these small bottles of Coca-Cola are their craziest creation. This Filipino product is bombarded by advertisements saying that the best drink ever is here. The plastic bottles used by Coca-Cola are claimed to be recyclable, but they are not recycled." This is because there is no proper system to collect garbage correctly. We don't have enough labor to collect all the garbage," said Merci Ferrer of Zero Waste City.
In Kampala, the capital of Uganda, local authorities collected only half of the city's garbage. There is a lot of plastic waste in this city. In areas where people do not have a proper garbage collection system, they burn garbage, which releases toxic gases and causes respiratory problems. Most of the tissues affected by plastic burning are the lungs and brain. The incidence of lung cancer in Uganda is rising rapidly. Scavengers are paid unfairly in the country. Coca-Cola said it is working to help scavengers who are usually among the most vulnerable, and has developed tools to help understand their economic situation.
Since 1990, Coca-Cola has made many promises, but it has failed in almost all aspects. In 1991, Coca-Cola launched a bottle made of 25% recycled plastic. After only three years, they phased out them. After that, Coke promised that every bottle of wine sold in the United States by 2005 will contain 10% recycled plastic, but they only achieved 4%. Another promise they made was that by 2015, all bottles will use 25% recycled plastic, but they failed again, only reaching 7%.
Since the start of the "Waste-Free World" project, Coke has increased the recycled plastic content in bottles from 8.6% to only 11.5%. If Coca-Cola works at this rate, it will only reach 32% by 2030, instead of the 50% per cebt they promised. The problem is that the recycling and recycling of plastic costs more than buying virgin plastic. Nearly 90% of the plastic in the Coke bottle is virgin plastic, which will also affect its carbon emissions. The carbon dioxide produced by recycled plastics has been reduced by 80%. Currently, Coca-Cola's total plastic production emits 6 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.
Coca-Cola said that compared with other materials, PET plastic is energy efficient in terms of production and transportation. Coca-Cola is confident that they will achieve the 50% recycled plastic target, but for this, it must increase the recycling rate. Coca-Cola stated that their refillable plastic bottles can be reused up to 25 times. In Brazil, they replace 200 million single-use plastic bottles every year. But globally, Coke sold 112 billion bottles last year, while only 4 billion refillable plastic bottles were sold. Refillable bottles require significant investment. They need to collect, they must clean them and put them on the market again. Coca-Cola is working hard to achieve its goals, and Coca-Cola still has the largest number of bottles littered.
Also read: Kerala man who cultivated 40,000 mangrove plants receives environmental award for his contribution
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