Coca-Cola continues to try and be green and gain credibility with global youth markets, but their latest campaign called 2nd Lives is a bad idea in numerous ways. The concept of recycling is obviously good, but the real motive is so obviously transparent as to make 2nd Lives look like the biggest greenwashing gimmick to date. By “recycling” plastic coke bottles, it keeps Coke, the brand, front-and-center for a longer period of time. Starting first, in Vietnam and then rolling out through other Asian countries.
Coca-Cola’s 2nd Lives includes 16 different caps that can turn an old plastic coke bottle into another item such as a paintbrush, squirt gun, pencil sharpener, ketchup dispenser. But the problem is that Coke is making more plastic to create the plastic tops. Which is then packaged in plastic.
They plan to hand-out 40,000 caps to those who purchase a plastic Coke bottle across Vietnam first before rolling it out in other Asian countries.
The real question is what’s the additional carbon footprint for making the 40,000 additional plastic caps in plastic packaging? And why not switch from plastic bottles to glass and avoid the entire plastic problem to begin with?
In the video for Coke’s 2nd Lives, it shows Vietnamese families, and mostly kids playing with the plastic Coke bottles with their shiny new red plastic caps.
Here is greenwashing once again in the name of being eco-friendly when the real problems are not addressed, i.e. selling sugary, fattening drinks to kids in plastic bottles.
