A clear message to take extended producer responsibility was sent to Coke and Pepsi when, activists from Greenpeace and Thanal delivered thousands of discarded PET mineral water bottles back. The company has of course denied to take it back. The campaign will go on with the demand that what cannot be recycled, reused or composted should not be produced in the first place. More so because the Zero Waste approach is all about restructuring production and manufacturing methods to prevent waste from being created in the first place
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On the 20th of October 2003, at the launch of www.zerowastekovalam.org, activists from Greenpeace & Thanal (a Trivandrum based NGO) along with representatives from the local community had joined in a symbolic clean-up activity at the Kovalam beach. Over 2000 PET (Poly-Ethylene-Tere-Phthalates) bottles, forming a major part of the ‘tourist trash’ that lined the Kovalam beach, had been collected to be handed over to Coke and Pepsi, two of the major manufacturers of mineral water in the country.

The activists clear demand was that corporations such as Coke and Pepsi must implement extended producer responsibility and stop trashing the planet. On the 24th of October, to complete the activity and take the demands of the community to the perpetrators, activists from Greenpeace and Thanal, delivered sacks of PET bottles to the Coca Cola Plant at Plachimada, in Kerala.
Coca Cola has turned down the demand and refused to accept the responsibility for these bottles. This is once again a display of double standards that these multinational companies come out with in this country where regulatory authorities and norms are so lax that they can get away without the onus of paying for such environmental degradation being passed on to them.

In other countries, the same company has put into place retrieval mechanisms especially for bottles of their soft drinks and water, with a financial incentive to the public on return of bottles. However, in India as well as in the other third world nations, the company takes no responsibility for recycling and/or sound disposal of hazardous packaging materials used for their products.

PET (Poly-Ethylene-Tere-Phthalates) is a non-renewable, fossil fuel-based derivative and therefore inherently wasteful of energy. Extensive scientific research on Poly-Ethylene-Tere-Phthalates establishes it to be a human carcinogen, endocrine disruptor and as one that affects sexual and reproductive development. In addition the danger of chemical migration of toxic compounds like acetaldehyde from PET bottles to water also persists. Recycling of PET bottles is very rare. As of now, in this country they are dumped after a one-time usage.

Which is why it is imperative that Cola Companies must phase out usage of this short-life non-biodegradable material for packaging immediately. And during the crossover phase, they must take responsibility for the collection and environmentally sound disposal of their packaging materials. Because Extended producer responsibility implies that if a product and its packaging cannot be reused, recycled or composted then the producer must be responsible for collecting and dealing with products at the end of their life. Which puts an onus back on the producer to design products that will eliminate waste totally.