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Comment by eptcyka | Hacker News Reader

It never ceases to amaze me that multi-billion dollar conglomerates seemingly get public support for free.

Coca-cola is certainly culpable here, since they have the disposable funds and political power to develop recyclable containers or enable the sale of beverages using reusable containers.

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> since they have the disposable funds

You have disposable funds, you MUST give it to what I deem to be important. Thanks.

For the record, yes, they will probably pass the cost off to the consumer (that or lower their profits). Even so, I don’t see it as a bad thing. We’ve lived for too long on cheap disposable plastics. Our descendants will look down on us for the world we’re leaving them with.

I just think it's in the interest of Coca Cola to maintain Earth to a sustainable level so that more people can give them money.

They don't.

Coca-Cola does not benefit from pollution or from using single-use containers. They use them because incentives are set up that way, i.e. "it's cheaper". Money is only a proxy for the actual incentives, though. If we expect Coca-Cola to use recyclable containers, we should set up the incentives that way, using taxes, subsidies, or outright banning single-use containers.

Put another way, what happens right now is that (some) people tell Coca-Cola to "do X, not Y", but actually punish them for doing X and reward them for doing Y.

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