An environmental historian's requiem for recycling | Bart Elmore | TEDxOhioStateUniversity
-
0:17 - 0:20If you used a plastic bottle
in the last week, -
0:21 - 0:22and you didn't recycle it,
-
0:22 - 0:27there's a good chance
that 450 years from now -
0:27 - 0:30that plastic bottle might
still be here on this planet. -
0:30 - 0:34And that's because NOAA researchers
have recently discovered -
0:35 - 0:38that it takes about 450 freaking years
-
0:38 - 0:43for a PET, polyethylene
terephthalate bottle, -
0:43 - 0:47PET bottle, to fully decompose.
-
0:47 - 0:51So I can imagine the scene
450 years from now -
0:51 - 0:55when some poor soul
picks up your bottle from the ground -
0:55 - 0:58and turns to his friend
for a conversation. -
0:58 - 1:00It might go something like this:
-
1:02 - 1:06"Hey bro," - they'll still be saying bro,
by the way, in 450 - -
1:06 - 1:09"Can you believe this?!
I mean, wait a minute, -
1:09 - 1:12they took a finite natural resource,
-
1:12 - 1:13fossil fuels,
-
1:13 - 1:16and tell me this -
they turned it into a container -
1:16 - 1:18that they used one time?
-
1:19 - 1:21And then, after they were
done with that container, -
1:22 - 1:24they threw it away?!
-
1:25 - 1:26I mean, that's crazy!
-
1:26 - 1:30What sort of advanced
civilization does that?" -
1:31 - 1:33I think they're going
to be looking for an explanation. -
1:34 - 1:38And if I was going to try
and offer an explanation to them today, -
1:38 - 1:40I would turn to this logo.
-
1:41 - 1:45A logo that we've been surrounded by
since we were in elementary school, -
1:45 - 1:47something we see every day.
-
1:47 - 1:52It's the recycling logo, of course,
and it was created in 1970 -
1:52 - 1:54by a graduate student named Gary Anderson,
-
1:54 - 1:57who was at the University
of Southern California. -
1:57 - 1:59Recycling was just
coming online at the time, -
1:59 - 2:03and he wanted to figure out a way
to describe this system -
2:03 - 2:05that would be this kind of closed loop.
-
2:05 - 2:07You know, a system
in which everything within it -
2:07 - 2:10would be used over and over again.
-
2:10 - 2:13We would just have
this world without waste. -
2:13 - 2:17It looks great, and it makes us
feel pretty darn good, I think, -
2:17 - 2:21when we go to the recycling bin
and we put our stuff in that bin. -
2:21 - 2:26But the problem with this image,
is that it's a lie. -
2:27 - 2:32Because today, only about 30%,
-
2:32 - 2:3930% of PET plastic bottles
used in this country are recycled. -
2:40 - 2:44That means that 70%, 70% of these bottles
-
2:44 - 2:49end up in landfills, in our rivers,
and ultimately in our oceans. -
2:50 - 2:54And this of course is contributing
to a problem of epic proportions. -
2:54 - 2:59Scientists have recently said
and predicted that by the year 2050, -
2:59 - 3:04there might be more plastic
in our oceans than fish by volume, -
3:04 - 3:06which is absolutely crazy.
-
3:06 - 3:09And if we think about
all that plastic churning around, -
3:09 - 3:13one of the issues is that particles
are ending up in our water supply. -
3:13 - 3:15Microplastics.
-
3:15 - 3:17A study that was recently conducted
-
3:17 - 3:22showed that 94% of tap water
tested in this country -
3:22 - 3:24had microplastics within it.
-
3:24 - 3:25You're drinking it.
-
3:26 - 3:31This is not something, in other words,
that's just out there in our oceans. -
3:31 - 3:33This is something
that's right here inside of us. -
3:33 - 3:35And it's something
that we have to figure out. -
3:35 - 3:41How do we end this plastic pollution
plague that we're confronting? -
3:42 - 3:47Well, to answer that, I want to suggest
that we don't some new technology -
3:47 - 3:50or even a new gadget
to solve this problem. -
3:50 - 3:54What we need is a better
understanding of our past, -
3:54 - 3:57a better understanding of history.
-
3:57 - 4:00And I can think of,
when I think of plastic containers, -
4:00 - 4:06no better history to turn to
than the history of this company: -
4:06 - 4:07The Coca-Cola Company.
-
4:08 - 4:12A company I spent 10 years or so
traveling around the world, -
4:12 - 4:14to Peru, India, and beyond,
-
4:14 - 4:19to understand the ecological footprint
of this firm that started in my hometown. -
4:19 - 4:21And I get it.
-
4:21 - 4:23This is an unusual place to start
-
4:23 - 4:26when thinking about a solution
to the plastic problem. -
4:26 - 4:30Because I think when we think about Coke,
we think of the corporate villain. -
4:30 - 4:32This plastic, these bottles
that they're putting out. -
4:32 - 4:34Greenpeace, for example,
-
4:34 - 4:41said that Coca-Cola put out about
100 billion plastic bottles in a year. -
4:41 - 4:45That's about 1/5 of all the plastic
bottles that are produced on the planet! -
4:46 - 4:48So they're part of the problem.
-
4:49 - 4:51But if we turn to their past,
-
4:51 - 4:55if we turn to Coke's history,
buried in the archives, -
4:55 - 4:58I think there are solutions
for the future. -
4:59 - 5:02So, let's go back to the past,
-
5:02 - 5:05and let's visit with this guy,
John Pemberton, -
5:05 - 5:08who was the creator
of the Coca-Cola formula. -
5:08 - 5:10John Pemberton was a pharmacist.
-
5:10 - 5:14He came to Atlanta in the 1870s
-
5:14 - 5:17trying to strike it rich
in this patent medicine market. -
5:17 - 5:23But unfortunately, his business
burned down not once, but twice! -
5:23 - 5:27And he went bankrupt
by the end of the 1870s. -
5:27 - 5:28It doesn't sound like the guy
-
5:28 - 5:31who's going to be the best-selling brand
in the world, right? -
5:31 - 5:33It sounds like somebody
who's never going to make it. -
5:33 - 5:38So what do you do when you're out of luck
and you want to make a buck? -
5:39 - 5:41Well, you look at the world, and you say,
-
5:41 - 5:44okay, what's a drink
that's really doing awesome right now, -
5:44 - 5:47and I'll try and imitate it.
-
5:47 - 5:51And that's exactly
what John Pemberton did. -
5:51 - 5:56He saw this drink, Vin Mariani,
coming out of France. -
5:56 - 5:59It was named after a guy
named Angelo Mariani. -
5:59 - 6:01And it was selling like wildfire.
-
6:01 - 6:05Here's why, it was
a Bordeaux wine, a red wine, -
6:05 - 6:08mixed with the coca leaf
from South America -
6:08 - 6:12that would've infused it
with small tinctures of cocaine. -
6:13 - 6:17So we're talking about, folks,
cocaine-infused wine. -
6:17 - 6:18(Laughter)
-
6:18 - 6:20It was stimulating,
-
6:20 - 6:21(Laughter)
-
6:21 - 6:23and quite exhilarating.
-
6:23 - 6:26Our president Ulysses S. Grant
drank this stuff. -
6:26 - 6:28"Mmm, makes me feel good."
-
6:28 - 6:32Of course it does, Ulysses S. Grant,
it's got cocaine in it. -
6:32 - 6:33(Laughter)
-
6:33 - 6:35And the other thing is,
-
6:35 - 6:37he's sitting there saying
this is good stuff. -
6:37 - 6:41It was like the Four Loko, really,
of the 19th century if you think about it. -
6:41 - 6:43Even the Pope drank this stuff, okay?
-
6:43 - 6:46So if you're not Catholic
out there, imagine this. -
6:46 - 6:49If communion had Vin Mariani,
-
6:49 - 6:53I think we'd all be signing up
to be Catholic today. -
6:53 - 6:55So John Pemberton's out of luck
-
6:55 - 6:57trying to figure out
how to make some money, -
6:57 - 6:59sees this and says,
alright, let's go do this. -
6:59 - 7:03And folks, this is the precursor
to what becomes Coca-Cola. -
7:03 - 7:06This is the first advertisement
for it in the 1880s. -
7:06 - 7:08It was called
Pemberton's Wine of Coca. -
7:08 - 7:12Not very original, completely
copying that drink, Vin Mariani. -
7:12 - 7:15And it was a red wine
mixed with the coca leaf. -
7:15 - 7:17Yes, it would have had wine in it.
-
7:17 - 7:21And it would have had
small quantities of cocaine. -
7:21 - 7:23He made it!
-
7:23 - 7:27Yes, this great drink is selling!
But, there was a problem. -
7:27 - 7:29And the problem was not the cocaine.
-
7:29 - 7:31The problem was the alcohol
-
7:31 - 7:36because the city of Atlanta moved
to ban the sale of alcohol in 1885. -
7:36 - 7:40Oh my gosh, he's got this great drink,
now he's got to give it up! -
7:40 - 7:41What's he going do?
-
7:41 - 7:43You know what he's going to do -
he creates Coca-Cola. -
7:43 - 7:46It is a non-alcoholic version,
-
7:46 - 7:52a temperance version
of that earlier wine-based drink. -
7:52 - 7:55And it became this great thing
-
7:56 - 7:57years later.
-
7:57 - 8:00Now, Pemberton did not put it in bottles.
-
8:00 - 8:02It was sold just at soda fountains
-
8:02 - 8:05in little cups like
the cute cup you see here. -
8:05 - 8:09And he would never actually see
this drink become bottled -
8:09 - 8:12or go global because he dies.
-
8:12 - 8:13It's a sad story.
-
8:13 - 8:15He finally makes it, and he dies.
-
8:16 - 8:20And so the person that follows after him
is Asa Candler, his successor. -
8:20 - 8:22And that's the real success of Coke.
-
8:22 - 8:26Asa Candler's a pharmacist
who incorporates Coca-Cola in 1892. -
8:26 - 8:28And he's going to create this great brand.
-
8:29 - 8:30Asa Candler, by the way,
-
8:30 - 8:35was a kind of workaholic, puritanical
Sunday-school-teacher kind of guy. -
8:35 - 8:36I scoured the archives
-
8:36 - 8:39for the happiest picture
I could find of Asa Candler. -
8:39 - 8:41This is Asa Candler on a good day.
-
8:41 - 8:43This is Asa Candler smiling.
-
8:43 - 8:45And the important point here
-
8:45 - 8:48is that like Pemberton, these guys
were in the Reconstruction South. -
8:48 - 8:50They did not have a lot of money.
-
8:50 - 8:52They didn't have a lot of money,
-
8:52 - 8:55so they knew the only way
they could spread this drink far and wide -
8:55 - 8:56is if they partnered with people.
-
8:56 - 9:00And Asa Candler's brilliant idea
was to bottle Coke. -
9:00 - 9:03In 1899, he makes the decision
to bottle Coca-Cola. -
9:03 - 9:07And that would change not only Coca-Cola,
it would change the world, -
9:07 - 9:09creating one of the biggest
distribution networks -
9:09 - 9:10the world has ever seen,
-
9:10 - 9:14stretching from Alabama
all the way to Zimbabwe. -
9:14 - 9:16It was an incredible system.
-
9:16 - 9:18But the only way that it worked
-
9:18 - 9:24was if small businessmen
in little towns across the country -
9:24 - 9:28and then ultimately the globe
put forward a little bit of money -
9:28 - 9:31to build these bottling plants
in basements, -
9:31 - 9:34in little small buildings
across the country. -
9:34 - 9:37And these were folks, again,
with not a lot of money. -
9:37 - 9:39They cared about everything,
-
9:39 - 9:43all the costs, the bottles,
the laborers, the trucks. -
9:43 - 9:45They had to think about all that.
-
9:45 - 9:46When it came to packaging,
-
9:46 - 9:49they couldn't afford to waste
their packaging. -
9:49 - 9:52They had to reuse it
over and over again to save on cost. -
9:52 - 9:54So they used returnable glass bottles,
-
9:54 - 9:57returnable glass bottles
in the early 20th century -
9:57 - 10:00so that they would save on cost.
-
10:00 - 10:03But here's the key.
How did that returnable system work? -
10:03 - 10:06Well, they put a deposit
on those containers. -
10:06 - 10:09A deposit of one to two cents.
-
10:10 - 10:11And if you, as a consumer,
-
10:11 - 10:15brought your bottle
back to your distributor, -
10:15 - 10:17you got one to two cents back.
-
10:17 - 10:18You got paid!
-
10:19 - 10:21And it was an incredible system!
-
10:21 - 10:22It worked!
-
10:22 - 10:24I went through the archives
to look at this system. -
10:24 - 10:27We're talking about
80% of Coca-Cola bottlers -
10:27 - 10:31were using a deposit system in 1929.
-
10:31 - 10:35The trade journals of the time said
the only sane and logical, -
10:35 - 10:39literally "sane and logical" thing to do
is to put a price on packaging -
10:39 - 10:42if you want it to be returned. Right?
-
10:42 - 10:43And you've got to understand
-
10:43 - 10:46this is at a time when
the drink's selling for five cents. -
10:46 - 10:49So you're talking about a two-cent deposit
on a five-cent drink. -
10:49 - 10:52Heck yeah, I'm bringing that thing back!
I want my two cents back! -
10:52 - 10:55Forty percent markup. Incredible.
-
10:55 - 11:01I have evidence in 1960s
that shows bottles doing 40, 50 trips -
11:01 - 11:05back and forth between their bottler
and their consumer. -
11:05 - 11:10Folks, it worked.
It worked really, really well. -
11:11 - 11:13So what happened?
-
11:14 - 11:17Well, in the 1960s and 1970s,
-
11:18 - 11:21Coca-Colas began switching
to throw-away single-use containers -
11:21 - 11:22that we see today.
-
11:22 - 11:25First steel cans, then aluminum cans,
-
11:26 - 11:29and then finally
plastic bottles by the 1970s. -
11:29 - 11:31And when they switched to that system,
-
11:31 - 11:33they said, look,
this is a new automobile age. -
11:33 - 11:36People are on the move.
People want convenience. -
11:36 - 11:40They want to be able to put the packaging
wherever they want. Right? -
11:40 - 11:43We don't need a deposit system
or a returnable system. -
11:43 - 11:45We got rid of those deposits.
-
11:45 - 11:48And as you might predict,
trash started piling up everywhere, -
11:48 - 11:50national parks, rivers, oceans.
-
11:51 - 11:53And people said this is a problem.
-
11:53 - 11:57But Coke, one of the biggest movers
and shakers in the beverage industry, -
11:57 - 11:59said, don't worry,
-
11:59 - 12:02because there's this new thing
called recycling, -
12:02 - 12:04that was just emerging in the 1970s.
-
12:04 - 12:07And this is what's going
to reclaim all this waste. -
12:07 - 12:08We don't need a deposit system.
-
12:08 - 12:11That recycling technology
can reclaim it all. -
12:12 - 12:16It was a huge bet. It was a big gamble.
-
12:16 - 12:18And they thought it would pay off.
-
12:19 - 12:24But the thing is we now as historians
can look back at over four decades of data -
12:24 - 12:26to see whether that gamble paid off.
-
12:27 - 12:29And looking at the late 1990s
-
12:29 - 12:32when curbside recycling
was really in full steam here -
12:32 - 12:35in the United States,
coming up to today, -
12:35 - 12:38this is the reality of what happened.
-
12:38 - 12:41Not only did recycling rates not skyrocket
-
12:41 - 12:44when we started really imposing
these curbside recycling systems, -
12:44 - 12:45for many years it declined.
-
12:45 - 12:49And in recent years
we're seeing this kind of stagnation -
12:49 - 12:51with this rate around 30%.
-
12:51 - 12:54This is a system in absolute crisis.
-
12:54 - 12:57You see that circle? It's not a circle.
-
12:58 - 12:59So how do we fix it?
-
13:00 - 13:03Well, we know the answers, right?
-
13:04 - 13:07We know from history
that when you put a price on packaging, -
13:07 - 13:10when you value that packaging,
it will be reclaimed. -
13:10 - 13:13And we don't have to guess
whether that system will work today. -
13:13 - 13:15We can see it in action.
-
13:15 - 13:18I'm mentioning Michigan
at Ohio State thing, I know. -
13:18 - 13:20But this is Michigan
doing a great thing here, okay? -
13:20 - 13:24They have got a system
that has deposits in place. -
13:24 - 13:27The citizens of that state and in Maine
-
13:27 - 13:30have enforced their own deposits via law
-
13:30 - 13:34to say that you have to
put a price on a container. -
13:34 - 13:36In those states if you go
and deliver those containers, -
13:36 - 13:37you get some money back.
-
13:37 - 13:40And I just wanted to show you,
the rates are through the roof - -
13:40 - 13:4380, 90% recycling rates.
-
13:43 - 13:45And if we go to Denmark or Germany -
-
13:45 - 13:48I could list a lot of different countries,
-
13:48 - 13:52whose nations have taken it
upon themselves to do this system - -
13:52 - 13:54we see the recycling rates
through the roof. -
13:54 - 13:56It works.
-
13:56 - 13:59And we can make it work here
across this nation. -
14:01 - 14:04So Coca-Cola said that by the year 2030,
-
14:05 - 14:08they're going to reclaim and recycle
every single container -
14:08 - 14:10that they put out into the environment.
-
14:10 - 14:12This is the pledge
they have recently made. -
14:12 - 14:14They're going to reclaim
every single container. -
14:14 - 14:17There will be a world
without waste, they say. -
14:17 - 14:18And I applaud them for this.
-
14:18 - 14:21There's a lot of well-meaning
people in the companies -
14:21 - 14:23thinking about these big strategies.
-
14:24 - 14:28But the problem is, in 2016,
as recently as 2016, -
14:28 - 14:29in a leaked corporate document,
-
14:29 - 14:32Coca-Cola said that it was going to,
-
14:32 - 14:36"fight back against deposit systems
in the European Union." -
14:38 - 14:40Folks, we don't have to wait
for Coke to get woke. -
14:41 - 14:42(Laughter)
-
14:43 - 14:48We, the citizens of this country,
can make the conscious choice -
14:48 - 14:52to end the unconscionable practice
of not putting a price on packaging, -
14:52 - 14:55especially finite resources like plastics.
-
14:56 - 14:58If we do that,
if we learn from our history, -
14:59 - 15:01then I think we'll make history.
-
15:01 - 15:06And it will be a history
that our descendants can be proud of -
15:06 - 15:08450 years from now.
-
15:09 - 15:10Thank you.
-
15:10 - 15:12(Applause) (Cheers)
- Title:
- An environmental historian's requiem for recycling | Bart Elmore | TEDxOhioStateUniversity
- Description:
-
Bartow Elmore speaks about how the solution to the current plastic waste problem lies in the history of one of the biggest enterprises in the world: the Coca-Cola industry. Bart Elmore studies the past in order to understand how we can live more sustainably on this planet. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Bart is assistant professor of environmental history and a member of the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State University. He is the author of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W. W. Norton, 2015), a global ecological history of the world’s biggest soft drink brand. From 2016 to 2018 he was a Carnegie Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, and he currently serves as the the editor of the Histories of Capitalism and the Environment book series at West Virginia University Press. He is writing two new books: Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and the Future of Food (W. W. Norton, forthcoming) and The Land Where the Sun Never Sets: The American South and Global Ecological Change (UNC Press, forthcoming).
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 15:21