The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest soft drink producer and one of the most visible consumer brands on the planet. For six consecutive years it has been ranked the world’s top plastic polluter, a result of its single-use packaging model and heavy lobbying against bottle-deposit schemes. Its bottling operations have been tied to water conflicts in India, Mexico, and South Africa, and labor rights groups have accused Coke’s franchise network of union suppression and violence in Colombia and Guatemala.
In Palestine, Coke products are manufactured in the Atarot settlement industrial zone through its Israeli bottler, the Central Bottling Company. During the 2023–24 assault on Gaza, Coca-Cola products were distributed to Israeli soldiers, drawing condemnation. In January 2024 the Palestinian BDS National Committee formally endorsed the #BoycottCoke campaign, naming Coca-Cola complicit in apartheid, occupation, and genocide.
Coca-Cola’s harm is structural. Its business model depends on saturating markets with single-use plastics, making it the world’s leading plastic polluter. Recycling initiatives and selective pilot projects do little to offset its continued reliance on virgin plastic, leaving the burden of waste management on low-income communities and municipalities. This entrenches environmental injustice even as Coke promotes greenwashed sustainability campaigns like World Without Waste.
Its water extraction practices intensify scarcity in vulnerable regions. In Kerala, community protests forced the closure of a plant in 2004; in Chiapas, bottling continues to compete with public water supplies; and in Cape Town, South Africa, Coke faced backlash for high industrial use during severe drought. These are not isolated incidents but part of a franchise model that privileges uninterrupted production over local water security.
Labor and human rights abuses follow a similar pattern. Allegations of union violence in Colombia and Guatemala, along with disputes in the U.S. and elsewhere, highlight how Coke’s bottling partners diffuse responsibility while the parent company profits through concentrate sales and licensing. This structural distancing shields Coke while leaving workers exposed to repression.
Finally, Coca-Cola’s presence in the Atarot settlement industrial zone ties its value chain directly to an illegal settlement economy. Its continued business in Israel during the Gaza assault, and the visibility of Coke products in troop-facing distribution, materially support an occupation condemned under international law. Combined with Coke’s lobbying to weaken plastics regulation, the company’s harms extend beyond pollution into political complicity that sustains systems of exploitation and violence.