Earth Hour 2022, Saturday 26th March at 20:30 local time. 1month to go!!

Staying in for Earth Hour weekend? Here are 20+ things you can do from the comfort of your home!

Posted by Earth Hour

In light of the ongoing health crisis as a result of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak, the Earth Hour global organizing team recommends all individuals to participate in Earth Hour virtually this year, for public health and safety. 

 

But just because you're staying at home, that doesn't mean you can’t have a memorable Earth Hour on-the-night experience!  We've put together a list of 20 things you can do at home or online this Earth Hour (Saturday, March 27 at 8:30 pm your local time) to spend the Hour with us, and help support our planet while you’re at it! Spending Earth Hour with your young ones?

Ideas for everyone:

1. Switch off your lights

This is the DNA of the Earth Hour movement and the easiest way to participate this Earth Hour. Simply switch off all non-essential lights for an hour!

2. Dinner-in-the-dark

Get some candles ready and whip up healthy and delicious meals that will make your taste buds tingle! Don't know where to start? Check out our list of 50 foods for a healthier planet and a healthier you!

Up for a challenge? Try a zero-waste cookout or put on a blindfold and try and guess what's been cooked up!

3. Join us virtually and tune in online to one of our live Earth Hour streams

From influencer Q&A sessions, to live performances and contests, stay tuned for our directory of live streams around the world you can tune in to on the night of Earth Hour! Bookmark this page for more updates to come. 

4. Have a night of board games or book readings in candle-light

Note: Our Earth Hour team will not be held responsible for any friendships ruined by a game of Monopoly 😇

4. Themed movie night

Get the popcorn ready and enjoy your most treasured Disney movies or take on those Harry Potter marathons that you've been always wanting to do. You can even watch some spectacular Emmy Award-winning documentaries like Our Planet on Netflix to experience our natural world in all its glory #ShamelessPlug 😎! No Netflix? No problem! You can even catch one bonus episode for free here - Our Planet: Our Business.

Still can't get enough of nature documentaries? The Environmental Film Festival is showing a large selection of their films for free on their website for a limited time!

6. Make an impact in only 60 seconds - sign our Voice for the Planet petition

Only have a minute? Add your Voice to call on world leaders to take urgent action to protect and restore nature! Our Voice for the Planet petition will be presented at major global conferences later in the year.

7. Camp in your backyard or living room

If you love the adventure of camping outdoors, we challenge you to turn your back garden or living room into your very own camping space! Don’t have an actual tent? Why not make one with bedsheets, pillows, and other household items! 

8. Minute-to-win-it

We've partnered with One Minute Briefs (OMB) to run a competition on the night of Earth Hour! Want to win £100 in cash and a tee from the Earth Hour shop? All you have to do is create a poster encouraging people around the world to take part in Earth Hour, and Tweet your entries to @OneMinuteBriefs and @earthhour with the hashtag #EarthHour! Learn more about the contest here

9. Class is in session! 

Learn more about nature loss and climate change - the biggest challenges of our time - and how we can overcome them together. You'll also discover why the two are more interconnected than you might think!  

10. Heads up! 

Challenge each other in a game of Heads Up! You can create your own deck of nature or wildlife-related word cards. Have a guesser hold up the cards on their forehead while the rest act out the word.

11. Practice some night-photography or try out "light-painting"

Want to test your photography skills? Try taking portraits of your family and friends in low-light or candle-light! You can also try out “light-painting” with your camera - we recommend a tripod and a slow shutter speed!

12. Up your sustainability knowledge and know-how 

Learn what you can do in your daily life to start living more sustainably - even the smallest actions add up!

13. Create your own mini-golf course using household objects

A little friendly competition can’t hurt - up the stakes by making the loser do the dishes or any household chore 😅!

14. Create your own Rube Goldberg machine

Need inspiration? Check out what Honda and Ok Go did! 

15. Challenge your artistic side with a candle-lit paint night

Feeling funky? You can also try using glow-in-the dark neon paint!

16. Write a letter to your future eco-warrior self

Do you wish to limit your water wastage or purchase eco-friendly goods more often? Why not put all of your sustainability goals into a letter for your future self! It’s a fun way to hold yourself accountable while at the same time do your part in helping our planet!

17. Eco-friendly fashion show

Turn your living room into a runway and bond with your family as you take on a fun and silly night of dressing up! Unleash your creative side by making your own costume from recyclable materials!

18. Dance the night away or hold a silent disco

Grab a pair of headphones and groove to your own favorite music! Take it up a notch by battling it out with your family and friends in a silent disco and claim dance floor supremacy.

Need some inspiration for your dance moves? Check out our Earth Hour Tik Tok channel (@EarthHourOfficial) and stay tuned for our dance challenges!

Need a groovy set of tunes? Check out our Earth Hour channel on Spotify! We've got our official trailer music from over the years, as well as a curated playlist of nature-inspired songs!

19. Acoustic jam session

Unleash the Ed Sheeran or Beyonce in you and sing the night away with your friends and family! For all you shower singers out there - this is your chance to shine! ⭐

20. Try Yoga at Home

Check out virtual yoga classes that start with basic beginner’s yoga poses and expand your skills as you go on. Further connect to nature and create a zen-like experience by meditating to some nature sounds on our Spotify channel, or trying some animal-inspired yoga poses!

Ideas for young ones:

1. Shadow puppet play

Want to entertain your young ones? Switch off all the lights and put on a shadow puppet play! Cut out different shapes of animals, set up a stage using cloth and light and let the shadows come to life! Further set the mood by transforming your pillows and blankets into a mighty fortress!

2. Indoor scavenger hunt 

Treat your young ones to a thrilling scavenger hunt! Turn off the lights, and hide items around the house (candy and chocolate are great incentives 😂 ). Challenge your young ones to find all the hidden items within a certain time limit, using only a flashlight!

3. Take on adventures with Pocoyo 

Every year, Pocoyo and friends turn off their lights during Earth Hour! Learn with your little ones how to take care of the planet by watching Pocoyo’s adventures, playing the Earth Hour game and completing the activity book. There are plenty of activities to be done with Pocoyo here!

4. Create your own tie-dye clothes

If your young one is tired of boring white socks or has too many old t-shirts, get together to tie-dye them! All you need is a white piece of clothing, a bucket or a basin, water, rubber bands, some gloves, and different colored dyes. Pro tip: your tie-dye pattern depends on how you fold and secure the fabric with your rubber band!

5. Goggles on - try a science experiment at home

Share the wonders of science with your little ones this Earth Hour! And the best part? You don’t need a ton of supplies - you can just use regular household items!

Be sure to share your Earth Hour experience with us using the hashtag #EarthHour! Also tag us @EarthHourOfficial on Instagram, @EarthHour on Facebook and @EarthHour on Twitter so we can easily share your posts and stories!

 The blog song for today is: "all around the world" by ELO

TTFN

 

Climate change: Top companies exaggerating their progress - study By Georgina Rannard BBC News

 

Climate change: Top companies exaggerating their progress - study

By Georgina Rannard
BBC News

                                                

Environmentalists often accuse corporations of misleading consumers with greenwashing

Many of the world's biggest companies are failing to meet their own targets on tackling climate change, according to a study of 25 corporations.

They also routinely exaggerate or misreport their progress, the New Climate Institute report says.

Google, Amazon, Ikea, Apple and Nestle are among those failing to change quickly enough, the study alleges.

Corporations are under pressure to cut their environmental impact as more consumers want green products.

Some of the companies told BBC News they disagreed with some of the methods used in the report and said they were committed to taking action to curb climate change.

The firms analysed account for 5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, the report says - which means although they have a huge carbon footprint, they have enormous potential to lead in the effort to limit climate change.

"The rapid acceleration of corporate climate pledges, combined with the fragmentation of approaches, means that it is more difficult than ever to distinguish between real climate leadership and unsubstantiated," the study says.

Study author Thomas Day told BBC News his team originally wanted to discover good practices in the corporate world, but they were "frankly surprised and disappointed at the overall integrity of the companies' claims".

Amazon said in its statement: "We set these ambitious targets because we know that climate change is a serious problem, and action is needed now more than ever. As part of our goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, Amazon is on a path to powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025."

And Nestle commented: "We welcome scrutiny of our actions and commitments on climate change. However, the New Climate Institute's Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor (CCRM) report lacks understanding of our approach and contains significant inaccuracies."

The Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor was conducted by non-profit organisations New Climate Institute and Carbon Market Watch.

It looked at firms' publicly stated strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in order to reach net zero.

Net zero, a target scientists say the world must reach by 2050 to limit global temperature rises, means not adding to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Achieving it means reducing emissions as much as possible, as well as balancing out any that remain by removing an equivalent amount.

Companies set their own targets. For example, Google promises to be carbon-free by 2030, while Ikea pledges to be "climate-positive" by 2030.

Emissions are created by anything from transporting goods, to energy used in factories or shops. The carbon footprint of growing crops or cutting down trees also counts.

The study gave each firm an "integrity" rating. It found that some were doing relatively well in reducing emissions but that all corporations could improve. None was given a rating of "high integrity".

It assessed factors like annually disclosing emissions; giving a breakdown of emission sources; and disclosing information in an understandable way.

It concluded that overall, the strategies in place - if implemented - would reduce emissions by 40% at most, not the 100% implied in the term "net zero".

Just three of the 25 companies are clearly committed to removing 90% of carbon emissions from their production and supply chains, it says. Those are Maersk, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom.

The way that businesses talk about their climate pledges is also a big problem, the study says. There is a large gap between what companies say and the reality, Mr Day says - and consumers are likely to find it difficult to determine the truth.

"Companies' ambitious-sounding headline claims all too often lack real substance," he explains. "Even companies that are doing relatively well exaggerate their actions."

Mr Day, whose team spent weeks poring over documents, said the average person trying, for example, to choose a piece of furniture, technology or buy food in the supermarket would struggle to make an informed decision.

He said one of the most controversial areas was what are known as downstream or upstream emissions - ones that are created by activity indirectly linked to a company.

For example, the report says 70% of Apple's climate footprint is created by upstream emissions, including the consumption of electricity by consumers using Apple phones, laptops and other products.

Many companies did not include these emissions in their climate plans.

Ikea told BBC News it welcomed "dialogue and scrutiny" of companies' climate commitments and goals, to ensure that they were "aligned with the science of 1.5°C".

"The new report by New Climate Institute is a constructive addition to this."

And Unilever commented: "While we share different perspectives on some elements of this report, we welcome external analysis of our progress and have begun a productive dialogue with the New Climate Institute to see how we can meaningfully evolve our approach.

Google told BBC News: "We clearly define the scope of our climate commitments and regularly report on our progress in our annual Environmental Report, where our energy and greenhouse gas emissions data is assured by Ernst & Young."

Apple did not respond directly to the report but told BBC News it has a plan to reduce its carbon footprint.

The Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor will continue to assess companies' pledges, releasing findings annually.

The full list of companies analysed is: Maersk, Apple, Sony, Vodafone, Amazon, Deutsche Telekom, Enel, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Hitachi, Ikea, Vale, Volkswagen, Walmart, Accenture, BMW Group, Carrefour, CVS Health, Deutsche Post DHL, E.On SE, JBS, Nestle, Novartis, Saint-Gobain, Unilever.

It seems that everybody has a plan. When they intend to start the plan is another matter.

At the end of the day, there must come a time when all of these large companies realise that they need to step up and actually carry out some of these plans, we are all affected by climate change and will be for some time to come.  

We can all do our bit by buying as much local produce as possible, here on Menorca the first low cost supermarket of menorcan products has opened in Mahon.  It is called Ses Illes.

That is fantastic news, it should be a huge success. I really hope that one opens up at this end of the island, however the next time I go to Mahon I intend to pop in.

The blog song for today is: " Aqualung" by Jethro Tull

TTFN

 

Operation Bloody Fjords 2021 - A campaign from our friends at Sea Shepherd UK - warning : upsetting content inside

 

Every year in the Faroe Islands, an archipelago which is part of the kingdom of Denmark situated just 230 miles north-west of mainland Scotland - around 850 small cetaceans, primarily long finned pilot whales and Atlantic white-sided dolphins are massacred in drive hunts called ‘grindadráp’ in Faroese.

The grindadráp (or ‘grind’ as the hunts are commonly called) can happen at any time at any one of the 26 designated killing bays around the islands, with the majority of the hunts statistically occurring between July and September. The grindadráp unlike most regulated (yet still unnecessary) hunts has no season, no quota and the Faroese rarely do not authorize a hunt when a pod is spotted, unless the weather or sea conditions are too hazardous for their boats.

The cruelty of the Grindadráp

After a pod is located and a hunt is authorised, The Faroese drive the pod using sports/recreational boats, fishing boats, jet-skis and any other watercraft they have available, including often utilising the small boats launched from the Faroese Coastguard vessel ‘Brimil’.

For many miles and over several hours, the Faroese use a ‘wall of sound’ from their boat engines to force the increasingly stressed and panicking pod towards the nearest designated killing bay and into its shallow waters where waiting Faroese men rush into the water to kill the animals or drag them further ashore with ropes and a blásturongul (a type of gaff-hook rammed into the whale’s blowhole) before the men attempt to sever the whale’s spinal cord with a mønustingari (a spinal lance resembling a short spear) and then use a grindaknívur (traditional grind hunt knife) to cut through the whale’s neck.

The killing of the dolphins and pilot whales is rarely as quick as Faroese government and media propaganda makes out.  Grindadráp hunts can turn into drawn-out, often disorganised massacres. The pilot whales and dolphins can be killed over long periods in front of their relatives while beached on sand, rocks or just struggling in shallow water with Faroese boats blocking their escape - until not a single pilot whale or dolphin is left alive.

Jústines Olsen, the Senior Veterinarian at the Faroe Veterinary Service calculated the average duration of killing during grindadráp hunts at 12.7 minutes, and Sea Shepherd crew often record killing at grindadrap taking over 20 minutes.

The Faroese second largest town of Klaksvik was the site of the infamous grind on 19 July 2010. That was a grind which went horribly wrong - even by Faroese standards. A total of 228 pilot whales were driven onto a beach large enough only for around 100 whales, and there were too few men waiting to kill them. The whales were left thrashing around on the beach, on rocks and everywhere in the bay, prolonging the suffering for many whales as their family members were slowly killed over several hours around them.

Every member of the pod is killed including pregnant mothers, juveniles and weaning calves. None are ever spared by the Faroese.

The Faroese are without mercy. Every member of the pod is killed including pregnant mothers, juveniles and weaning calves. None are ever spared from the Faroese’ knives. The grindadráp would be totally illegal under European Union legislation, because in the EU (including the kingdom of Denmark, of which the Faroe Islands is a part) it is illegal to kill, harass, stress, chase or touch any small cetaceans. Despite the Kingdom of Denmark being in the EU, the Faroe Islands is not, although the islands are within Europe and benefit substantially from subsidies from Denmark and free trade agreements with the EU.

Sea Shepherd volunteers have often witnessed the ‘sport’ of the grind, with lots of Faroese men rushing to the killing bay. There is cheering, laughter and there can be no denying the bizarre festival-like atmosphere among men armed with lances, knives, ropes, and hooks. The younger Faroese men are often seen smiling and posing for photographs while drenched in the blood of the whales or dolphins they have killed in an outrageous display of disrespect for the animals whose lives they have taken. Today, the Faroese grindadráp is continued not out of necessity for the islander’s survival as in Viking times, but instead is continued under misguided sense of national pride in this communal bloodbath. The reality is that a modern grindadráp is little more than a community sport providing contaminated free meat for a wealthy European island population which simply does not need it.

The reality is that a modern grindadráp is little more than a community sport…

Arguments for continuing such a needless and inhumane hunt to maintain a Faroese sense of ‘cultural history’ are ridiculous. Previous claims that the Faroese also think they need to “maintain the killing of hundreds of pilot whales each year to maintain community cohesion” are astonishing. If this is really the case, then the Faroe Islands government need to take a hard look at what is wrong in its communities. If we all used such excuses to continue ‘old traditions’, then many other ancient barbaric practices would still be happening today. The last similar drive hunts of small cetaceans that took place in the UK were in Shetland, Scotland - But those drive hunts ended a century ago.

The Increasingly Commercial Nature of the Grindadráp

It is true that a large part of the resulting pilot-whale meat and blubber is divided up among those who take part in the hunt, and then divided up to the local community. However, pilot whale meat and blubber also ends up being sold in various Faroese stores, in the Miklagarður supermarket in the SMS Shopping Centre in Torshavn and the outdoor market at the capital’s harbour - and tourists can purchase and eat pilot whale at establishments such as the Hotel Hafnia’s Kafe Kaspar in Tórshavn, the Marco Polo restaurant, Bowlinghøllin á Hálsi and the Michelin starred KOKS restaurant and at many more establishments.

There has been for many years now, a commercial element to this hunt despite the repeated claims of the Faroese government. On the 4^th August 2017, the Faroese newspaper ‘Dimmalaetting’ stated that whole Pilot whales were being sold to supermarkets for 25,000 Kronur each.

Additional profit can always be made by the Faroese selling the teeth of the pilot whales on cord or chain necklaces to naive foreign tourists who often illegally import to their home country as souvenirs.

Despite some inaccurate claims in newspapers in recent years, the Faroese do not depend on pilot whale and dolphin meat to survive. The Faroe Islands is only 230 or so miles from mainland Scotland and is supplied by sea and air with products from all over the world. In the Miklagarður store in the SMS centre (Tórshavn) which opened in 1977 you can get almost anything including python, zebra, crocodile, buffalo as well as Norwegian minke whale and Faroese pilot whale (minus any contamination warnings of course). In fact, there are one or two stores in almost every Faroese town of a thousand people or more. Midvagur for example has 2 different stores serving only 1080 people, with another store serving just 800 people in adjoining Sandavágur.

Led by its lucrative fishing and fish farming industries the Faroese economy has prospered. The Faroe islanders per capita GDP is comparable with any Scandinavian country and current unemployment is just 1.7% with almost zero poverty.  The most recent statistics show that its gross domestic product per capita (a country's economic output per person) totalled $58,950 (£45,102) in 2017. That is almost as high as the US ($59,958), and more than both the UK ($40,361) and France ($40,109). The Faroe Islands also receives an annual subsidy from Denmark equivalent to $100m. The grindadrap could never be called subsistence whaling, it simply is not needed to feed anyone.

Health Risks to the Faroese and Tourists of the ‘Grind’

Why any Faroese person (or tourist) would choose to eat pilot whales or dolphins today is a mystery given the significant and proven risks to their health. As the Danish food critic Trine Lai rightly points out on her recent food blog about KOKS restaurant on the Faroes: “The pilot whale is in fact not considered human food anymore, because it is full of mercury and other heavy metals from the pollution of the Atlantic Ocean”.

This is Scientific fact, peer reviewed and published in the ‘New Scientist’ in 2008 in a research article by the Faroe Islands chief medical officers Pál Weihe and Høgni Debes Joensen who concluded that the pilot whale meat was unsafe for human consumption because of high mercury content. The two scientists detailed also in their research how mercury poisoning could trigger a range of ailments including fetal neural development, high blood pressure, circulatory problems, and possible infertility (all too common symptoms observed in the small Faroese population).

Notes on ‘Sustainability’

The Faroese also hunt four other Appendix II species: Atlantic White Sided Dolphins, Bottlenose dolphins, Risso’s dolphins and Northern bottlenose whales (in addition to long finned pilot whales).

An often-repeated Faroese claim is that:

“Long finned pilot whales are not endangered and the harvest, averaging out at 850 per year, is ‘sustainable’, according to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals”

This statement is entirely false (as ASCOBANS / CMS - Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals convention secretariat staff can verify with a simple phone call.

Faroese pilot whale hunts are NOT designated ‘sustainable’ under ASCOBANS due both to lack of accurate pilot whale population data and the ocean areas covered by the treaty in regard to Appendix II species. The grindadrap has not been declared 'sustainable' by the CMS for the same reasons.

Furthermore, in 2018 the Faroese ex-prime minister revealed publicly that there has never even been a sustainability study into the hunting of Atlantic White sided dolphins (or any other dolphin species) in Faroese waters.

That said, Sea Shepherd UK is not interested in getting into arguments about ‘sustainability’. The grindadrap is simply cruel - both the harassment of the drive, and the inhumane killing. For those reason the hunts should be stopped immediately. Sustainability (or not) is a debate to be had only if something is already ethical and humane in modern society.

The grindadráp a barbaric relic of a bygone age. A needless hunt of hundreds of pilot whales and dolphins which should have ended a century ago…

The grindadráp a barbaric relic of a bygone age. A needless hunt of hundreds of pilot whales and dolphins which should have ended a century ago, a tradition that poisons not only the Faroese people, but also tourists while fully sanctioned by the Faroese government, defended by the Kingdom of Denmark, it’s Navy, Police and Court system, and maintained only under ludicrous arguments of ‘history and culture’.

This "tradition" can be firmly placed in the same category as fox hunting, bull fighting and all other similar barbaric and cruel events.

As for the stupid tourists who by eating in the restaurants on the islands are in fact encouraging the locals, they are just as bad as the people killing the animals in the first place. For crying out loud, why would anyone want to eat dolphin? These islanders have been getting away with this for far too long now, pressure must be put on the Danish government to act.  Denmark is supposed to be one of the leading modern thinking countries in europe, prove it.  

They exist because people do not have the respect for other living things and think that they have the right to decide between life and death.  There should be no place for these "traditions" in the world now.  Just as over the years the animal acts have been disappearing these events should be put securely in the past.  We are all being told at the moment that we should remove shameful reminders of our past, why not things like this? 

We share this beautiful world with other beings, it is not ours alone,yet we are the ones who are destroying it. It really is time that we remembered our place on this planet.  Humans are the only animals that kill for fun and money.  We see ourselves as being superior in intelligence so maybe we should start behaving better towards not only animals but each other. 

I didn't put any photos in this blog because they are very upsetting and we all know what goes on.  If you need any more info visit the Sea Shepherd UK website: www.seashepherd.org.uk

The blog song for today is: "News from Spain"by Al Stewart

TTFN

Coca-Cola plan to increase reusable bottles concerns advocacy group - a report from www.recyclingtoday.com

 

Coca-Cola plan to increase reusable bottles concerns advocacy group

Oceana claims the company’s recent plan to sell 25 percent more beverages in reusable bottles lacks transparency.

February 11, 2022

Alex Kamczyc

Plastics

The Coca-Cola Co., Atlanta, has announced plans to increase the share of its beverages delivered in returnable/refillable containers. The company says it is committed to selling 25 percent of beverages in refillable bottles by 2030, up from 16 percent. 

The pledge is in response to a pending shareholder proposal filed by As You Sow and Green Century Capital Management, asking the company to set stronger refillable goals.

“We are pleased to see the company increase its commitment to reusable bottles as a proven method to reduce single-use plastic waste and promote a circular economy for packaging,” says Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president at As You Sow. “This action has the potential to substantially reduce the amount of single-use plastic bottles used, many of which end up as ocean plastic pollution.”

Coca-Cola has been named the world's worst plastic polluter for the fourth year in a row, according to Break Free From Plastic's brand audit. Nearly half of the company’s packaging consists of single-use PET plastic bottles, generating 3 million tons of plastic packaging annually, the equivalent of producing 200,000 bottles per minute. Single-use bottles are far more likely to be improperly disposed of and become ocean pollution, harming marine life, the organization says. However, Coca-Cola says it has long operated significant refillable bottle operations in many markets. 

As You Sow cites a recent analysis by Oceana, an oceans advocacy group based in Washington, indicating a considerable potential to reduce ocean plastic by increasing refill market share. The report concluded that boosting the share of refillable bottles by 10 percent in all coastal countries in place of single-use PET bottles could reduce plastic bottle marine plastic pollution by 22 percent.

However, Oceana says it is concerned with Coca-Cola's new plans as it lacks transparency. Coca-Cola's announcement lacked details on exactly what the 25 percent target represents and metrics indicating how this may contribute to reducing the company’s reliance on single-use plastic and its carbon footprint, according to Oceana.

“Coca-Cola has done the right thing for the oceans by prioritizing reusable and refillable packaging as a core strategy in their efforts to reduce the company’s environmental impact,” says Dana Miller, Oceana’s director of strategic initiatives. “This is a step in the right direction, but to measure this impact and hold Coca-Cola accountable to their commitments, greater transparency is needed, and so Oceana is calling on the company to provide more details.”

Despite Oceana’s concerns over the announcement, other environmental groups like Greenpeace USA, Washington, have voiced support for the company. 

“It’s great to see Coca-Cola take this significant step to set global targets for reusable packaging,” says Kate Melges, Greenpeace USA global plastics corporate lead. “This is a long-awaited move in the right direction that other companies need to follow to tackle the plastic pollution crisis.” 

Melges says Coke can build on this leadership move by doubling the commitment to 50 percent reusables by 2030. 

“By embracing reuse, Coke has an opportunity to lead big brands out of their reliance on single-use plastic packaging into the low-carbon, zero-waste economy that our planet, communities and climate desperately need,” she says.

Coca-Cola is one of more than 70 signatories, including multinationals, that recently signed a statement calling for an ambitious global treaty that addresses the issue of plastic pollution.  

Progress is being made, slowly but progress all the same.  If I do buy coca cola it is in a glass bottle or cans, the same goes for fruit juices and other drinks.  In the summertime the amount of plastic I do not use is amazing.  The only problem, as I have said before is drinking water.  Where we live there is no drinkable tap water and I have to buy in plastic (5ltrs or bigger), there are osmosis machines but then I have the problem of the water that is wasted for 1 ltr of drinking water, how does that compare with the amount of plastic waste?

It really is down to the local council to provide drinkable tap water, I know that many of us would be prepared to pay higher bills for good drinking water.

The blog song for today is: "  The importance of being idle" by Oasis

TTFN