Coca-Cola recently committed to making 25% of their packaging reusable or refillable by 2030 – tin can Pepsi ascension to the challenge and be more ambitious than Coke?

Pepsi Pollution in the Anacostia River in Maryland. © Tim Aubry / Greenpeace
A Pepsi bottle floats along the bank of the Anacostia River in Maryland. Trillions of drinks and snacks are sold in throwaway packaging each year, and more ends up in the environment than is recycled. The majority is dumped or burned. © Tim Aubry / Greenpeace

Coke or Pepsi? Many soda drinkers around the globe where both options are bachelor have strong loyalties to one or the other and the rivalry between the ii drink companies is more a century quondam.

In the 1970s, Pepsi launched the "Pepsi Challenge" which invited consumers to judge which cola they adopt in a blind sense of taste test. This year, I want to challenge Pepsi to footstep upwards in the fight to stop single-apply plastics from polluting our world and to be more ambitious than Coca-Cola.

Imported Plastic Waste in East Java, Indonesia. © Fully Syafi / Greenpeace

Add your proper noun to show support!

It'southward time to demand that massive consumer goods companies like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo, and Unilever turn down unnecessary throwaway plastics.

Add your name

Personally, I don't drink much soda, but I spend near of my days thinking about Coca-Cola, Pepsi and the way that these companies deliver their products to soda drinkers.

The unfortunate truth for both brands is that most of their products come in single-apply containers, ofttimes fabricated of plastic, that nosotros use for just a few minutes then throw away (or endeavor to recycle if we alive in an area with recycling infrastructure). This method of distributing soda is unsustainable, energy-intensive, polluting our communities and contributing to climate modify.

For the past 4 years, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle and Unilever accept been named the top plastic polluters in global make audits. Their plastic waste can exist establish everywhere – in the food nosotros eat, in our drinks, in the air we exhale, scientists fifty-fifty plant microplastics in our blood and our lungs.

Attempting to increment the recycled content of their plastics – the gist of their plastic waste matter strategy until very recently – will not prevent these companies from polluting our communities, wrecking our climate and natural spaces.

In February, Coca-Cola committed to making at to the lowest degree 25% of their packaging reusable or refillable by 2030. This is the first fourth dimension that a Big Brand has made any sort of commitment on refill and reuse metrics. Reuse and refill systems are zippo new – think of the milkman delivering bottles and collecting the empty ones to be cleaned and reused, or think of how you lot used to be able to buy a soda in a glass bottle, then return the bottle so that it could exist used over again.

Coca-Cola states that 16% of its packaging is already refillable and reusable, mostly in Latin America. They've got a long mode to go before they can be a real leader in the fight confronting plastic pollution, but they're currently leaps and bounds ahead of Pepsi.

And then, let's bring this dorsum to Pepsi. Pepsi's current amount of reusable or refillable packaging? Zero. Yep, you lot heard information technology – a whopping 0% of Pepsi'south packaging portfolio includes reuse and refill. But, there is a small-scale glimmer of hope – in March, shareholder non-profit AsYouSow announced that Pepsi pledged that they would set a refill & reuse goal by the cease of 2022.

This announcement-to-make-an-proclamation begs several questions: How quickly will Pepsi aim to move a portion of their packaging to reusable systems? How ambitious will their commitment be? And of class, will Pepsi get above and beyond Coke'due south delivery of 25% past 2030?

Pepsi has a huge opportunity to shell their long-time rival at something that many of us are prepare for. People are extremely concerned about the plastic pollution crisis and climatic change – and the ii are very interconnected. Volition Pepsi seize this moment and vanquish Coke in the refill and reuse race or will they come up out with a weak commitment that underwhelms and disappoints us at the cease of 2022?

Coke vs Pepsi bottles. Coke was the first. Pepsi, you can be the best. Commit to 50% reusable packaging by 2030.

The path to a world with reuse and refill might not be the easiest one – it will crave buy-in from customers, refill/reuse infrastructure, policy changes, and even collaboration among big brands like Coke and Pepsi – but we know it is necessary if we are going to stem the tide of single-use plastics flowing into our oceans every twenty-four hour period. It might not be the easiest affair to do, but it is necessary. The plastic problem is vast, it impacts all of us, and it is time for the multi-billion dollar corporations who caused this crunch to actually practise something to set up information technology.

With our collective voices pressuring PepsiCo leading upwards to their Annual Shareholder meeting in May and throughout the residuum of the yr, I am hopeful that Pepsi tin be meliorate than Coke by committing to at least 50% reuse and refill by 2030.

Clean-up and Brand Audit Activity at Miramar Beach in Mexico. © Greenpeace

Ship a message to Pepsi's CEO

Tell Pepsi to be better for people and planet. Commit to 50% reuse and refill by 2030!

Add your name

Send a message to Pepsi's CEO before their shareholder meeting.

Lisa Ramsden is a Senior Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace USA.