Athletes urge brands to ramp up reusable packaging at Olympics
Over 100 sports organisations and elite athletes call on Coca-Cola and Pepsi to increase reusable packaging at the forthcoming Olympic Games.
The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the largest sporting event to serve beverages in reusable packaging, potentially replacing millions of single-use plastic cups.
In a letter, led by Sailors for the Sea Powered by Oceana and EcoAthletes, signatories urged the soft-drink companies to use Paris 2024 as a launchpad for more reuse at future Olympic Games and other sporting events.
Over 50 Olympians, Paralympians, world champions, and world-record holders signed the letter.
Olympic sailor in mixed 470 sailing for Team USA, Lara Dallman-Weiss, says, 'I’ve competed in events around the world – and everywhere I sail, I find single-use plastics polluting our waters and shorelines.'
The organisations and athletes stress that recycling alone will not solve the pollution problem.
The letter refers to research by Oceana, which finds that just a 10-percentage point increase in reusable beverage packaging globally by 2030 can eliminate the need for over one trillion single-use plastic bottles and cups.
This shift can prevent up to 153 billion of these containers from getting into the world’s waterways and oceans.
Specifically, the letter asks Coca-Cola and Pepsi to keep the torch lit for reuse following the Olympics by committing to:
- Make reuse an option for all their customers globally and dramatically increase reusable packaging by 2030.
- Ensure future Olympics and other major sporting events rely on reusable packaging rather than single-use.
- Advocate for the inclusion of legally binding targets and other mechanisms to increase reusable packaging in national legislation and in the United Nations plastic treaty.
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