SAN FRANCISCO— On San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, campaigners from Story of Stuff Project today created a massive sand art message visible from the sky, calling out the damage caused by beverage giant Coca-Cola’s single-use plastic bottles and urging the company to shift more of its product into reusable bottles.

The company, deemed the World’s Biggest Plastic Polluter for the past six years during annual Break Free From Plastic Brand Audits, produces 134 billion single-use plastic bottles every year, many of which are destined for landfills or the environment.

“Coca-Cola bombards consumers with its recycling messages but is using more virgin plastic each year,” said Sam Pearse, campaigns director at the Story of Stuff Project. “It’s time to transition to reusable bottles; our recent landmark study shows that in California alone, we could slash 3 billion plastic bottles every year by shifting to reusable systems, a solution that enjoys widespread public support. Presumably, that is why Coke’s reusable glass bottles are so prominent in its advertising.”

A petition with more than 58,000 signatures from organizations including The Story of Stuff Project, the Center for Biological Diversity, Beyond Plastics and Plastic Pollution Coalition will be delivered to Coca-Cola on Saturday, World Clean Up Day. This is a day when thousands of volunteers come together to remove plastic waste from the environment, a problem that campaigners warn must be addressed upstream.

The petition urges the company to reinstate its reusable packaging goals, extend them to the U.S. and support the advancement of deposit return programs, critical to high return rates. Coca-Cola erased its previous commitment to serve 25% of its beverages in reusable packaging by 2030, immediately after the failed Plastics Treaty negotiations in Busan last year.

“Instead of making good on its own pledge to shift to 25% reusable bottles, Coca-Cola quietly dropped its pledge last November,” said Judith Enck, former regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and president of Beyond Plastics. “Ironically, the company’s pilot program in El Paso, Texas, has spent the last few years proving that refillable bottles can, in fact, replace single-use plastic ones while reducing waste, saving money, creating local jobs, and satisfying customers. Coca-Cola should ditch the empty promises and take action to swap out single-use plastic bottles with refillable glass bottles.”

“Coca-Cola churns out more than 100 billion plastic bottles every year that are made from fossil fuels and then thrown away at the expense of wildlife and people’s health,” said Kelley Dennings, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Coke loves to feature cartoon polar bears in commercials, but using refillable bottles is one of the biggest ways they can help real animals and communities harmed by the climate emergency. We’re calling on Coca-Cola to stop trashing the planet and commit to reuse.”

“Plastic poisons people with toxic chemicals and harmful microplastic particles and has been linked to serious health problems including cancer, infertility, and obesity,” said Dianna Cohen, co-founder and CEO of the Plastic Pollution Coalition. “Plastic production directly endangers the lives of people living near industrial facilities. Coca-Cola has been named as the world’s #1 Top Plastic Polluter for six years in a row. While advocates have been urging the company for years to bring back refillable glass bottles — a real solution that Coca-Cola already implements in other countries — the company is doubling down on plastic ‘recycling’ and other greenwashing claims in the U.S., making the plastic pollution crisis worse. The Coca-Cola Company has spent years systematically dismantling bottle bills and fighting bottle deposit legislation in the U.S. and around the world. To solve the plastic pollution crisis, Coca-Cola needs to invest in real solutions—now.”

A video revealing the sand art will be available live on Friday on the Story of Stuff Project’s Instagram page, hours before World Clean Up Day, when citizens from around the world will clear millions of pounds of plastic from our beaches, rivers and parks.

Background on Coca-Cola’s recent packaging practices:

• Published science has shown that there is a 1:1 relationship between a company’s plastic production and the amount of that company’s plastic found in the environment. Coca-Cola continues to grow its plastic footprint, producing an estimated 134 billion plastic bottles annually and refuses to commit to glass refillable bottles, despite being the company that pioneered them decades ago. The data behind this paper came from BFFP brand audits, which happened on World Clean Up Day every year between 2018-2023.
• One report from Oceana predicts on the current trajectory Coca Cola’s plastic footprint is set to grow to 9.1 billion pounds by 2030.
• Coca-Cola’s commitment to single use plastics over refillable glass bottles is being flagged as a human rights abuse. In Samoa the company dismantled the circular glass bottles system in 2020, replacing it with single-use bottles that are shipped in and left to pollute the island, with little recycling capacity and finite waste management. In March a United Nations special rapporteur wrote to Coca-Cola highlighting the human rights implications of this decision and received a very weak justification back from the company. Here is BFFP’s press release from that time.
• A recent documentary showed that the company can run successful reuse systems in the U.S. It highlighted a recent pilot program launched in El Paso, Texas, that has expanded to San Antonio. There are also widespread reuse systems in many countries around the world, including Mexico.

Another analysis showed that despite the company’s material practices, you are five times more likely to see Coca-Cola in a glass bottle in an ad than you are to see Coke’s product in that material