I try to stick to posts where I create most of the content, but my disgust at the depravity of this video was too great to avoid. I hope I misunderstand something about it. If so, I’m happy to change my story.

I don’t know much about Bill Nye, but I thought he created a character appealing to kids. Here he trades in what value he had for I don’t know what, but I hope he got paid a lot. Plastic being recyclable or anything less than pure pollution is like Oxycontin being not addictive. It may happen in rare cases, but overall, the whole world suffers for this industry fairy tale that a few craven individuals profit from.

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EDIT: Beyond Plastics made a counter video

Beyond Plastics, headed by podcast guest Judith Enck, made a counter video and wrote more about it in their post Plastics Recycling Is A Big, Fat, LIE. It begins:

Coca-Cola Enlists Bill Nye, the Science Sellout Guy to Mislead the Public About Plastics Recycling; Beyond Plastics Responds with a Claymation Video of its Own to Set the Record Straight

In the run up to Earth Day (Friday, April 22nd ) Coca-Cola released an animated video featuring Bill Nye the Science Guy, attempting to fool the public into believing that Coca-Cola’s plastic beverage bottles are a recycling success story when the vast majority of Coke plastic bottles are not recycled. 

Coca-Cola produces 200,000 new plastic bottles a minute and sells 112 billion plastic beverage bottles worldwide every year for a total of roughly 3 million metric tons of plastic packaging. The majority of Coca-Cola’s plastic bottles are not recycled and only 11.5% are made from recycled material. Many of Coca-Cola’s plastic bottles end up littered and enter the world’s rivers and oceans.

Despite these facts, Bill Nye claims in the video that, “The good people at the Coca-Cola Company are dedicating themselves to addressing our global plastic waste problem.”

Read the rest here. Here’s their video:

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