I recently saw another egregious instance of this corporate Caveat Emptor.

The grand wizard of corporate responsibility puffery, Coca-Cola, put up a significantly-sized billboard in the Netherlands, stating:

DON’T BUY

Coca-Cola

If you don’t help us recycle

I had some thoughts about it, which are worth reiterating here.

Besides some other sneaky design issues, the min problem is that it sends the message that:

“We, the poor company, are trying everything we can, but this pesky problem is insurmountable when you dirty people throw our effectively-single-use bottles into the ocean. Cry.”

Of course, it’s individual behaviour that’s the problem, not the operating protocols of a massive multi-national company.

Yes, buying behaviour and consumer attitudes are important, and we need to stop thinking that we can just throw things "away". But that's never going to be enough to solve the problem.

The best we can practically expect from individuals is that they put their Coca-Cola Company bottles in the right bins. But if the recycling systems where they live aren't effective, or are altogether non-existent, then we're just optimising one tiny section of a broken loop.

Companies — especially the big ones that can make a massive difference with a tiny lever — should be doing everything they can to ensure their processes and products are circular, rather than shifting the responsibility to the consumer.

And if they don’t, they should be heftily banned to offset the cost to the rest of the world.

If they can afford to take up massive billboard space to greenwash their practices and blame us for their contribution to the trash pile, they can afford to solve the problems they create.