rich 1.0 Action Network https://actionnetwork.org <link href='https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><script src='https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v6/petition/cocacola-bring-back-refill?format=js&source=widget'></script><div id='can-petition-area-cocacola-bring-back-refill' style='width: 100%'><!-- this div is the target for our HTML insertion --></div> Plastic Pollution Coalition https://actionnetwork.org/groups/plasticpollutioncoalition https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/petitions/photos/000/457/911/normal/Bring_Back_Refill_-_Resized_Action_Network.png The Coca-Cola Company is the largest consumer-facing global seller of plastics, producing 134 billion – almost one quarter (23%) – of the world’s PET plastic bottles. Its “Every Bottle Back” pledge stands in stark contrast to the company’s #1 ranking for five years running in #BreakFreeFromPlastic’s brand audits of plastic pollution. In fact, Coca-Cola itself was an early leader in refillables. During the company’s early years, it pioneered a waste-free system for fountain drinks and created a successful deposit return system that ensured an impressive 96% of its glass bottles were reused. But between the 1950s and 1970s, the company gutted its own refillable infrastructure in the US, opting for single-use containers that externalized the cost of its new packaging waste onto the public and ratepayers. Story of Stuff Project’s new report reveals that Coke knew at the start of the 1970s that switching to single-use containers would be worse for the environment but doubled down regardless. Then the company set about battling federal and state legislative efforts to hold the beverage industry accountable for the lifecycle costs of its packaging through bottle bills and bans on single-use containers. In 2022, Coca-Cola announced its intent to sell 25% of its beverages globally in refillable containers. But there’s a glaring hole in its flagship market, the US, where the company has virtually no refillables in circulation apart from one small pilot project in Texas. We’re calling on Coca-Cola and its bottlers to change the course of history and lead the beverage industry once again by bringing back refillable bottles and supporting state-mandated refill quotas. https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/cocacola-bring-back-refill