The National Advertising Review Board Slams the American Beverage Association for Its Deceptive ‘Every Bottle Back’ Campaign
Beyond Plastics Released a Video Highlighting These False Claims Last Year
For Immediate Release: March 28, 2023
Contacts:
Melissa Valliant, Beyond Plastics — MelissaValliant@Bennington.edu, (410) 829-0726
Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics – JudithEnck@Bennington.edu, (518) 605-1770
This month, the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) recommended that the American Beverage Association change its claims regarding the use of recycled materials in bottles, as well as claims relating to the association’s partnerships with nonprofit organizations and efforts to achieve sustainability goals. The American Beverage Association is an American trade association whose members include Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Keurig Dr Pepper.
The NARB panel concluded that certain statements in the beverage industry’s “Every Bottle Back” campaign conveyed unsupported claims to consumers, conflating current recycling practices and outcomes with aspirational practices and outcomes. The ads were widely run on U.S. TV stations. In 2022, Coca-Cola partnered with Bill Nye in a similar greenwashing attempt, to which Beyond Plastics responded with a claymation-style video setting the record straight.
“Many beverage companies have been duping consumers for decades with advertising campaigns like this one, implying that recycling prevents companies’ plastic waste from choking our oceans, entering our bodies, and polluting our communities,” said Beyond Plastics president and former EPA regional administrator Judith Enck. “Unfortunately, a half a century of multimillion-dollar PR campaigns has worked, deceiving many into believing that if they just put more of their plastic items in the recycling bin, the world would be a cleaner and healthier place. We need more regulation of ad campaigns like the American Beverage Association’s ‘Every Bottle Back’ so Americans can stop being misled and lawmakers can finally work on policy action that stops plastic pollution at the source — by reducing the amount of plastic produced in the first place.”
A staggering 94% of the United States' plastic waste is disposed of in landfills, burned in incinerators, or ends up polluting our ocean, waterways, and landscapes after being used just once, often for mere minutes. Even plastics that do make it to recycling facilities aren't all recycled. A 2022 Beyond Plastics report found that 30% to 36% of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles are lost during the recycling process.
"The truth is that we cannot recycle our way out of the growing plastic pollution crisis. Instead, we must enact new laws and regulations — which beverage companies often oppose — to substantially reduce the production, usage, and disposal of plastics,” Enck said.
While producing misleading campaigns about the promise of plastics recycling, beverage companies continue to oppose what could be the single most effective policy to reduce plastic pollution and boost recycling: container deposit laws, better known as bottle bills. These laws are highly effective at increasing collection and recycling rates of beverage containers, but have only been adopted in 10 U.S. states, in large part because major beverage companies and industry trade associations have spent decades lobbying against this common-sense environmental policy.
Bottles and cans with a deposit are recycled at two to three times the rate of bottles and cans without a deposit, and deposit systems reduce beverage container litter by 38% to 84%. Americans like bottle bills — a 2022 poll found widespread bipartisan support for container deposit laws, with 81% supporting them.
About Beyond Plastics
Launched in 2019, Beyond Plastics is a nationwide project that pairs the wisdom and experience of environmental policy experts with the energy and creativity of grassroots advocates to build a vibrant and effective movement to end plastic pollution. Using deep policy and advocacy expertise, Beyond Plastics is building a well-informed, effective movement seeking to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to save our planet and ourselves, from the negative health, climate, and environmental impacts for the production, usage, and disposal of plastics.