As Coca Cola Amatil (CCA) emerged from their AGM today, Greens MP Ian Cohen called on the company to refrain from using their influence to frustrate community efforts to expand South Australia’s successful container deposit scheme.
“Coca Cola have donated almost two million dollars to the major political parties in this country over the last nine years,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen.
“What the developer donations scandal has revealed in NSW is that political donors make donations in order to gain preferential access to and/or treatment from MPs and Ministers.
“He who pays the piper calls the tune. There should be a moratorium on all political donations from beverage companies, particularly while a national review of the viability of a container deposit scheme is underway.
“Voluntary waste management schemes have consistently failed to achieve targets for recycling and resource recovery.
CCA’s Chairman David Gonski today told the AGM that the company has ‘engaged a sustainability manager to work with our customers and we’re gathering ideas from many of our people on ways to reduce waste and maximise resources’.
“Container deposit is a proven system for minimising waste. If Coke were serious beyond greenwash, they’d be heeding calls supported by 90% of the community to introduce a cash back scheme for bottles and cans.
“Self regulation has maintained status quo where recycling rates of beverage containers have been stagnant for years. Is it a coincidence that nine years of donations have coincided with nine years of self regulation and nine years of chain dragging on waste issues?
“Once the company has embraced container deposit, they might like to look to their sister company in Germany for guidance on how to set up a refillable system. The German PET Coca Cola bottle on my desk has been refilled 20 times – now there’s an idea,” said Mr Cohen.
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