Earth Day’s Eleventh Hour – by Rebecca Mayer

It is literally 11 pm on Earth Day, April 22, as I finally check my email and post this update to the Bag It Blog.  We have one hour remaining to participate in the following petition circulated by the Plastics Pollution Coalition.  If you are still awake and would like to participate one last time in this year’s Earth Day, here is your chance!

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.”  This bottle, of course, is still

plastic, still non-biodegradable, and still non-compostable.   

The invite states:

“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… “

Here is what the petition states:

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 20.9% percent 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. http://www.container-recycling.org/

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 bottle” 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.

http://www.ewg.org/bottled-water-2011-search?id=36

7. We Regret that Coca-Cola Corporation has been so slow to properly label the source of

the tap water that it bottles. http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/04/20

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. www.storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/

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.

The undersigned*,

Lisa Kaas Boyle, Esq., Plastic Pollution Coalition

Stephanie Barger, Earth Resource Foundation

Beth Terry, My Plastic-free Life

Leslie Tamminen, Seventh Generation Advisors

Mark Murray, Californians Against Waste

Rachel Vida, Campaign for Recycling

Daniella Russo, Plastic Pollution Coalition

Sherri Loveland, Orange County Interfaith Coalition for the Environment (OCICE)

Angela Howe, Surfrider Foundation

Laura Rea, Sustainable Business Leadership Council

Tedd Ward, M.S. – Program Manager, Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority

Dan Silver, Executive Director, Endangered Habitats League

Andrew Rea, Andrew Rea Design

Evelyn Wendel, WeTap

Richard Gardner, Director, South Coast Water District

Jessica Aldridge, Burbank Green Alliance

Andy Shrader, Co-lead Plastic Bag Ban grassroots organizer, Los Angeles & Culver City

Christopher Chin, Executive Director, COARE

Cathy Lam & Mike Kane, Founders, Our1World.org

Monica Wilson, GAIA

Melanie Winter, Director, The River Project

*Although some of us were not personally invited, we the undersigned also send our regret

For more information contact Lisa Boyle at lisa@boyleroom.com 310-422-7988 or Stephanie

Barger at stephanie.barger@earthresource.org or 714-381-6400.