WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - Coca-Cola is being sued by an environmental group for the plastic bottles the company uses to dispense its soft drinks, the environmentalists claiming the company is deceiving the public while polluting land and oceans with plastic.
Company officials declined to comment on the lawsuit and how the company would defend against it.
“We do not comment on pending litigation,” a media spokesperson for Coca-Cola, told Legal Newsline.
The suit was filed on June 4 by attorneys for Richman Law & Policy of Irvington, New York, in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington D.C. The suit was launched on behalf of the plaintiff, Earth Island Institute, a Berkeley, California-based environmentalist nonprofit.
The lawsuit accuses Coca-Cola of concocting a false and misleading campaign to present itself and its soft drinks as sustainable and environmentally friendly.
“Despite being one of the largest contributors to plastic pollution in the world,” the lawsuit reads. “Plastic pollution is a global problem and threatens human and environmental health on a massive scale.”
Coca-Cola headquarters is in Atlanta.
The lawsuit alleges that Coca-Cola engaged in a deliberate attempt at disinformation to counter the growing knowledge by the public that plastics are causing human and environmental harm. The suit also contends that officials at the company made no major attempt to alter their products to make them “sustainable” or less harmful to the environment, but instead have consistently broken promises to become more eco-friendly.
According to a report in advertisinglaw.com, the company on its website promised to make 100% of its packaging recyclable worldwide by the year 2025, and use at least 50% of recycled material in its packaging by 2030.
The lawsuit alleges progress on those goals is not being met and violates the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CCPPA), a law passed in 2018 that protects consumers against deceptive business practices.
“Coca-Cola alone generates more plastic waste than any other company in the world, producing 2.9 million metric tons of plastic waste per year, according to a report from the Changing Markets Foundation,” the lawsuit read.
While not commenting on the litigation, the spokesperson for Coca-Cola said: "We recognize our responsibility to help solve the global plastic waste crisis.
"In 2018, The Coca-Cola Company launched its World Without Waste initiative, which includes a commitment that by 2030 we will collect a bottle or can for every one we produce and recycle it so that the material can be used again and again.
"We also committed to make 100 percent of our packaging recyclable by 2025, to use at least 50 percent recycled material in our packaging by 2030 and to work with partners around the world to support a healthy, debris-free world."
The lawsuit demands a jury trial and is asking for a declaration that Coca-Cola’s conduct violates rules of the CCPPA.
The Earth Island website alleged that Coca-Cola is playing what amounts to a double game, acting like it is making efforts to curb plastics pollution when it is not.
“It is time this company is held accountable for deceiving the public,” Earth Island Institute General Counsel Sumona Majumdar said on the website. “The more consumers become aware of plastic pollution, the more the company doubles down on its purported commitment to the environment to appease those concerns, but the actual results of their efforts tell a very different story. The company needs to come clean and be honest with consumers.”
The Coca-Cola litigation is only one lawsuit. Earth Island is suing eight other plastic producers including Pepsi and Nestle, a Swiss food and drink company, accusing them also of misleading the public over product sustainability, according to businessinsider.com.