Coca-Cola slammed over latest packaging change amid global backlash: 'Affecting millions of people's livelihoods'
Coca-Cola is facing backlash after a U.N. report slammed the decision to switch from reusable glass bottles to single-use plastic in Samoa. The move has led many to criticize Coca-Cola's claims of environmental stewardship.
The U.N. Special Rapporteur for Toxics and Human Rights released a report highlighting how, in 2021, the regional Coca-Cola bottler in Samoa switched from a system of reusable glass bottles to plastic packaging.
"[A] pivotal decision was made to abandon the long-standing, effective system of reusable glass bottles in Samoa," Dr. Rufino Varea of the Pacific Island Climate Action Network told Packaging Insights. "For decades, the communities in Samoa participated in a circular system, returning glass bottles for a deposit, which ensured high reuse rates and minimized waste."
The criticism has brought renewed attention to Coca-Cola's status as one of the world's largest plastic polluters, if not number one.
The presence of single-use plastic and other waste is particularly problematic in Samoa, which lacks the capacity for large-scale recycling programs.
"Samoa's small size and population (225,681 in 2023) makes economies of scale for disposal or recycling of certain waste streams non-existent," the U.N. report said.
"Samoa, and most Pacific Island states, are grappling with a monumental waste crisis, a significant portion of which is plastic," Varea noted.
Plastics have permeated every corner of the globe, from the Arctic, to the top of Mount Everest, to the bottom of the sea, and even our own bodies.
"Every year 19-23 million tonnes [20.9 to 25.3 million tons] of plastic waste leaks into aquatic ecosystems, polluting lakes, rivers, and seas," the U.N. Environment Programme noted. "Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems' ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people's livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being."
We are still learning the tremendous number of ways in which plastic pollution impacts our environment, our community, and our health. For example, according to The Washington Post, recent studies have found that the presence of microplastics can interfere with bees and the pollination process.
When you think about a product's packaging, which of these factors is more important to you?
The way it looks
The information it provides
The waste it produces
I don't think about packaging at all
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Such impacts could have dramatic consequences for the global food supply, which depends heavily on pollination and pollinators.
Efforts are underway to significantly curtail the amount of plastic we produce and discard. The U.N. Environment Assembly has adopted a resolution urging the world to work toward a binding international agreement to limit plastic pollution.
Some private companies have also been seeking innovative ways to do their part in cutting back on plastic use. Even Coca-Cola, often maligned as the world's biggest producer of plastic waste, developed a 100% plant-based, recyclable PET bottle.
While the problem of plastic waste might seem insurmountable, we can all do things to make a difference. For instance, you can choose products that come in non-plastic packaging like glass or cardboard. Better yet, you can forgo unnecessary single-use packaging by carrying a reusable water bottle.
Though one small decision might seem inconsequential, multiply that decision by thousands or even millions of people, and we can make a real difference.
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Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Gaza marks the start of Eid with outdoor prayers in the rubble and food growing ever scarcer
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For the second year, Muslims in Gaza were not able to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the traditional pilgrimage. In Gaza City on Friday, Sanaa Al-Ghola, a displaced woman from Shejaiyah, stood in the rubble of a badly damaged graveyard near a partially collapsed mosque. She had come to pray for her son, Mohamed al-Ghoul, who she said was killed in shelling last month after going to his grandfather's house to get flour. His father was wounded in the attack. 'We lost our home, money, and everything," she said, crying as she held her son's photo. 'There is no more Eid after you're gone, my son.' Families at a displacement tent camp in Muwasi faced a grim first day of Eid al-Adha. Tahrir Abu Jazar, 36, of Rafah, warmed up leftover lentils and cooked rice inside her tent, but said she had no bread to feed her five children, who sat on the bare ground nearby. 'There are no Eid celebrations now as there is no new clothes or sacrificial meat, or monetary gifts, or joy,' she said, reminiscing over Eid days before the war when the children had meat. 'My son went out and tried to celebrate Eid and was scared of the warplane, so he came back." Israel issues a new warning In the southern city of Rafah, nine people were killed on their way to try and collect humanitarian aid at various distribution points, according to officials at Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis, where the bodies were brought. Eight died from gunshot wounds and the ninth person from shrapnel injuries. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the hospital's claim but said it was looking into the report. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly formed group of mainly American contractors that Israel wants to use to replace humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the U.N., told The Associated Press that reports of violence in Rafah were inaccurate and that aid distribution was completed 'peacefully and without incident.' In northern Gaza on Friday, Israel issued a new warning to civilians saying the military was about to undertake intensive operations in an area after it said rockets were fired toward Israel from the sector. Meanwhile, the military said four Israeli soldiers were killed Friday in southern Gaza when an explosive detonated as they searched a Hamas compound in Khan Younis, causing part of a building to collapse. Five soldiers were injured, one seriously, spokesperson Effie Defrin said. The war broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 hostages. They are still holding 56 hostages, around a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages from Gaza and recovered dozens of bodies. Since then, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in its military campaign, primarily women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. The offensive has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of roughly 2 million Palestinians. UN warns of risk of famine After blocking all food and aid from entering Gaza for more than two months, Israel began allowing a trickle of supplies to enter for the U.N. several weeks ago. But the U.N says it has been unable to distribute much of the aid because of Israeli military restrictions on movements and because roads that the military designates for its trucks to use are unsafe and vulnerable to looters. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said Thursday that Gaza's people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation. 'This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,' Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience, said in an interview. Over the past two weeks, shootings have erupted nearly daily in the Gaza Strip in the vicinity of new hubs where desperate Palestinians are being directed to collect food. Witnesses say nearby Israeli troops have opened fire, and more than 80 people have been killed, according to Gaza hospital officials. Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid and trying to block it from reaching Palestinians, and has said soldiers fired warning shots or, in some cases, shot at individuals approaching its troops. The GHF sent out a message on its Facebook site early Friday that it had closed all aid distribution sites until further notice and urged people to stay away for their own safety. It later clarified that the measure was only a temporary pause due to excessive crowding and that the agency had distributed all aid available Friday. Israel's military said that going ahead, distribution sites would be operated from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and that outside those hours, the areas would be considered closed military zones that are strictly off limits. ___ Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Fatma Khaled in Cairo, Paolo Santalucia in Rome and David Rising in Bangkok contributed to this story. Wafaa Shurafa, The Associated Press
Scientific American
a day ago
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Tree Planting Efforts Could Actually Worsen Climate Change
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a day ago
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Less spending, high prices and fewer animal sacrifices at this year's Eid al-Adha celebrations
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'This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,' said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis. 'There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses … The conditions are very, very harsh.' The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said Thursday that Gaza's people are projected to fall into acute food insecurity by September, with nearly 500,000 people experiencing extreme food deprivation, leading to malnutrition and starvation. 'This means the risk of famine is really touching the whole of the Gaza Strip,' said Rein Paulson, director of the FAO office of emergencies and resilience. The war in Gaza and the struggle to celebrate were at the forefront of the minds of Muslims in Kenya, Imam Abdulrahman Mursal said as he led Eid prayers in the capital, Nairobi. 'We ask Allah to hear their (Palestinian) cries. 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Mohammad Ali Qureshi, one of the sellers, said this year his goats were fetching higher prices than last year: 'Earlier, the sale of goats was slow, but now the market is good. Prices are on the higher side.' Festival preparations also were peaking in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where many Muslims dye sheep and goats in henna before they are sacrificed. 'We are following the tradition of Prophet Ibrahim,' said Riyaz Wani, a resident in Kashmir's main city of Srinagar, as his family applied henna on a sheep they plan to sacrifice. In Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, Muslim worshippers were shoulder-to-shoulder in the streets and the Istiqlal Grand Mosque was filled for morning prayers Friday. Outside Jakarta, the Jonggol Cattle Market bustled with hundreds of traders hoping to sell to buyers looking for sacrificial animals. While sales increased ahead of Eid, sellers said their businesses have lost customers in recent years due to economic hardship following the COVID-19 pandemic. A foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2022 and 2023 significantly dampened the typically booming holiday trade in goats, cows and sheep, though Indonesia's government has worked to overcome that outbreak. Rahmat Debleng, one of the sellers in the market, said before the pandemic and the FMD outbreak, he could sell more than 100 cows two weeks ahead of Eid al-Adha. But on the eve of the celebration this year, only 43 of his livestock were sold and six cows are still left in his stall. Jakarta city administration data recorded the number of sacrificial animals available this year at 35,133, a decline of 57% compared to the previous year. More than 1.6 million Muslims were in Mina, Saudi Arabia, on Friday to perform the Hajj ritual, the symbolic stoning of the devil. Mina is where Muslims believe the Prophet Ibrahim's faith was tested when God commanded him to sacrifice his only son Ismail. Ibrahim was prepared to submit to the command, but then God stayed his hand, sparing his son. In the Christian and Jewish versions of the story, Abraham is ordered to kill his other son, Isaac. As Muslims around the world celebrated Eid al-Adha, the holiday was tinged with bitterness in the rebel-controlled city of Goma, in eastern Congo. Under the looming shadow of the occupation, hundreds of worshippers wearing colourful tunics and hijabs gathered at Goma's Stadium of Unity to pray for peace. The decades-long conflict in eastern Congo escalated in January, when the M23 rebels advanced and seized the strategic city of Goma. Despite the challenging situation in the region, those gathered expressed their gratitude for being able to celebrate the holiday. 'We were anxious because of the war, but by God's grace, we made it here,' Fatuma Ramazani, a Muslim resident of Goma, told The Associated Press. 'We prayed 'in' peace, and that is why we prayed 'for' peace to return,' he added. 'Islam is a religion of peace, so we can only pray for peace and for God's grace to help all those involved in this security issue to see how to prioritize peace,' Grâce Omar, another worshipper, said. In the crowded stadium, imams emphasized the importance of solidarity and prayer in difficult times. 'Today is a special day for Muslims, so I take this opportunity to pray to God to bring peace to Congo in general, and to areas plagued by violence, like Goma, in particular. It is time for people to say 'enough' to all that is happening in the country,' said Imam Sheikh Sabiti Djaffar Al Katanty. Eid al-Adha celebrations in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, were overshadowed by one of the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades. The severe hardship stems from recent government economic policies, intended to boost savings and attract investors. Instead, these measures have fueled high inflation and sent the naira plummeting to record lows against the dollar. The cost of rams for the traditional Eid al-Adha sacrifice, central to the celebration, has more than doubled since last year. Despite these challenges, some devout Muslims in Nigeria, where roughly half the population practices Islam, found reason for hope. 'We know prices are a bit on the high side and everything is hard,' Lagos student Amira Mustapha said. 'But we should look beyond that and see the positive side of things, celebrate, be joyful for seeing another year and pray for seeing many more years.' An event celebrating Eid-al-Adha on Friday brought together Christian and Muslim religious leaders and citizens in Turkey's southeastern city of Mardin, according to state-run media. Organized by the Mardin Municipality's Art Academy, attendees included Mardin Governor Tuncay Akkoyun, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop Saliba Ozmen and Deputy Mufti Ali Uney, alongside congregants from both faiths. 'Recently we celebrated Easter. Today we're celebrating Eid al-Adha. Tomorrow there will be another holiday, and we will again be together, said Bishop Ozmen. Deputy Mufti Uney praised the gathering as a 'great example of co-existence' and wished for fraternity and solidarity. ___ Associated Press journalists Shonal Ganguly, in New Delhi, Dar Yasin in Srinagar, India, Inaara Gangji, in Nairobi, Justin Kabumba, in Goma, Cinar Kiper in Bodrum, Turkey and Dan Ikpoyi in Lagos, Nigeria contributed to this report.
