What role does marketing play in blocking plastic pollution solutions?

Image credit: Wired

During the August 2025 Plastic Pollution Treaty negotiations in Geneva, we learned about the role corporate marketing and branding play in hindering progress in addressing the sources of plastic pollution and moving towards circularity.

The example given was how corporate marketing divisions object to standardizing plastic bottles in soft drinks, making them more recyclable. Brand recognition of a bottle’s size, shape, and color is considered important to consumer product recognition. A September 24, 2025, article in Wired dramatically makes the point. With the title “Coke Designed a Plastic Bottle to Sell the World More Soda,” the story documents how the Coca-Cola Company worked to develop a plastic bottle that would evoke the image of its iconic contour glass bottle. The firm had used the contour bottle since 1916 and wanted to keep that image “high in the public’s imagination” and to make its containers ever larger. “We sell more, we make more, so let’s size up,” was its thinking.

Plastic contour bottles mean more sales

Making larger plastic bottles was more expensive, ”which meant the amount of soda it sold needed to jump significantly to cover the added costs.” Coke launched the plastic contour bottle in test markets and sales increased 25%. The company told investors the plastic contour 20-ounce bottle will “invite consumers to drink more Coca-Cola, more often and in larger sizes.”

Sergio Zyman, the company’s chief marketing officer, told a trade magazine, “We call it unleashing a powerful marketing tool that touches consumers where our competitors cannot—in the palms of their hands.” Retailers added more shelf space, and Coke’s sales volumes increased by as much as 90%.

By the end of the 1990s, the returnable and refillable glass bottle that generated the design only accounted for 0.2 percent of sales.

What does this mean for plastic pollution?

First, the reusable and refillable glass bottle, for which Coke already had production lines, was relegated to a negligible part of the company’s profits. Second, even though the company already had significant production lines for aluminum cans, it would be unlikely to switch from plastic because cans couldn’t replicate “the feeling in the palms of consumers’ hands” that plastic contour bottles could emulate and the resulting sales.

Another element frustrating the change from plastic is at a company’s commodity level. The cost to shift from plastic containers to aluminum or back to glass, is not likely enough to dissuade consumers, but the commodity cost internally appears significant to a company’s materials ordering divisions, incentivizing them to prefer plastic over aluminum.

Aluminum is an abundant resource

Aluminum is 100% recyclable indefinitely with no material degradation, and the aluminum market is strong, according to Waste Advantage in an October 10, 2025, article. “The U.S. aluminum recycling market is built on strong economics, proven technology, and an abundant resource reserve base. Aluminum is a clear American success story: a market-driven economy that delivers environmental, economic, and community benefits while ensuring long-term supply stability.”

In addition, cans that can hold the volumes desired by Coca-Cola marketers are doable. All About Beer published an article that says 19.2-ounce tall cans are “craft beer’s No. 1 dollar growth driver.”

Marketing vs the environment is a choice 

Despite available options, Coca-Cola’s marketing appears to trump the environment when it comes to using plastic bottles, at least according to these citations:

• An April 24, 2024, study in Science Advances found that Coca-Cola brands accounted for 11% of all branded plastic waste collected globally.

• A March 2025 report by Oceana projected that the company could contribute over 1.3 billion pounds of plastic waste to oceans and waterways annually by 2030.

• In December 2024, The Guardian reported that the company is dropping its target to make 25% of its packaging reusable by 2030, citing consumer habits and logistics as challenges.

The Coca-Cola experience makes a strong case for extended producer responsibility.