Walmart Coke Bottle Shirts April 28, 2008

Usually I try to focus on small companies or individuals who are doing their part to impact the world but today I wanted to explore an ad I heard on the radio.  While carting my two boys around, a commercial featuring two teenage sounding girls came on.  These two girls were talking about the new t-shirts from Walmart that are made from recycled Coke bottles.  (I have to admit, when I heard the ad, I did not realize the shirts actually advertise Coke on them.  I thought they were just made from soda bottles.) 

 Coca-Cola Drink 2 Wear T-shirts are produced from blended fabrics containing recycled plastic bottles and cotton.  Each t-shirt features a neck tag that tells the consumer the estimated number of bottles that were recycled to produce that particular shirt.  The ad girls go on to say that if every Walmart customer bought one of these shirts,  21,000 tons of plastic waste would be kept out of our landfills.  Obviously, that is a lot of plastic.

In the interest of disclosure, I will have to admit that I am fairly anti-Walmart anything.  I think it is VERY important to support small, local producers and shops to create a vital, thriving economy.  It is hard, however, to argue with the impact of those kind of numbers.  I have heard that Walmart is trying to improve their green standing but have little specific information to judge.  The cynical side of me wonders if big corporations are realizing that being “Green” can translate into big dollars and this knowledge is driving their changes.  I guess then you have to ask if it matters what the motives are if the action is making a big impact?   Tell me what you think.