For my day job I led a tour of Coca-Cola's PET bottle recycling plant in General Trias. The technology is there, but the logistics of collecting plastic bottles is one issue, and finding buyers for the recycled products (which are pellets, not bottles) is another.
That tour was mind-opening for another reason: I learned that Starbucks uses recycled PET material for their drinks, but as their cups are printed with the Starbucks logo, it makes them difficult to recycle, if not impossible. Coca-Cola shifted to clear bottles precisely for this reason, I'm told. I don't think Starbucks would have the incentive to muck with their branding for the environment...
At the heart of all these is — I don't want to sound judgmental but — mindless consumption. I try to avoid drinking Coke and have tried to skip going to Starbucks. I am glad to report I have been successful so far.
No, I get you. And if you can’t resist, you have to be mindful of how you consume. I still get surprise from my suki baristas at my nearest Starbucks when I ask for “for here ware” when I write there.
But I also believe in the need to design the system to encourage the behaviors we want to see, ie recycling these bottles. Unfortunately Coke removed their PET bottle recycling points near my flat… so I guess I won’t buy soft drinks for a while.
We are all imperfect environmentalists. Again, we go back to mindfulness; recognizing that the things we consume have an impact — immediate or long term, obvious or implicit — on other people and the world. Unfortunately, it may take a second-level of thinking to reach that conclusion; a kind of self-awareness that not all of us — including myself — have.
For my day job I led a tour of Coca-Cola's PET bottle recycling plant in General Trias. The technology is there, but the logistics of collecting plastic bottles is one issue, and finding buyers for the recycled products (which are pellets, not bottles) is another.
That tour was mind-opening for another reason: I learned that Starbucks uses recycled PET material for their drinks, but as their cups are printed with the Starbucks logo, it makes them difficult to recycle, if not impossible. Coca-Cola shifted to clear bottles precisely for this reason, I'm told. I don't think Starbucks would have the incentive to muck with their branding for the environment...
Thank you for that piece of information. Thanks also for reading.
At the heart of all these is — I don't want to sound judgmental but — mindless consumption. I try to avoid drinking Coke and have tried to skip going to Starbucks. I am glad to report I have been successful so far.
No, I get you. And if you can’t resist, you have to be mindful of how you consume. I still get surprise from my suki baristas at my nearest Starbucks when I ask for “for here ware” when I write there.
But I also believe in the need to design the system to encourage the behaviors we want to see, ie recycling these bottles. Unfortunately Coke removed their PET bottle recycling points near my flat… so I guess I won’t buy soft drinks for a while.
We are all imperfect environmentalists. Again, we go back to mindfulness; recognizing that the things we consume have an impact — immediate or long term, obvious or implicit — on other people and the world. Unfortunately, it may take a second-level of thinking to reach that conclusion; a kind of self-awareness that not all of us — including myself — have.