Coke and Pepsi - Making Yucatecan more PET-friendly

Coca y Pepsi
polluting your environment as well as your mind

Ok this is not a complete article, just a short comment on the subject of those infuriatingly ever-present plastic no retornable pop bottles that are strewn along the entire Golfo de Mexico beach and all major roadways and sideroads in the entire Yucatan peninsula (and probablemente the rest of the country as well).

Congratulations are in order to both companies. Together with your advertising, you have now effectively covered the entire landscape with your very lousy imagen. If there was any doubt as to who is the major producer of street-side pollution, your aggressive pushing of no-return PET bottles has cleared the matter up, at the cost of the environment.

I have a couple of questions, if anyone can answer them I would appreciate hearing from you:

To thecompanies:
Where the hell is the Coca Cola Company's and Pepsi Cola's social conscience? The Coca Cola company advertised heavily their PET recycling program, but either the recycling machines broke down or they are paying such a miserably low price that even the pepenedores are laughing at them. Pepsi may be the choice of a new generation, but one would hope that the new generation will not have to wade through mountains of plastic garbage emblazoned with the Pepsi bolita to get to where they want to go. Clean up your mess.

To theconsumers:
I personally don't buy a lot of pop, and when I do, I try to have a returnable bottle to take to the store. Why can't more people do this? Is is really so hard to think un poco mas alla than your own personal comfort? Don't be so bloody lazy.

To thegovernment:
I don't know at what level: probably state, but the government should step in and say yes, you're providing jobs and certain other dubious benefits, but now it's time to clean up, recycle whatever. Why isn't this being done? Too difficult? Too compromising? It's not like the companies are going to get mad and leave are they? I don't think so. Who does the Coca Cola and Pepsi companies answer to anyway on an environmental level? Anyone?

Basically a good start would be for consumers to start buying only recyclable ie: refillable bottles. However, since that won't happen here, people being as apathetic and lazy as they are, the next step could be that Pepsi and Coke say 'oops, what a bloody mess' let's clean it up, our corporate image is at stake'. That probably won't happen either, since corporate image in Merida is like a Tom Cruise / Nicole Kidman movie; Far and Away. So that leaves the government. And government is the people right?

So we're back to the people. I guess we do have a problem after all.