The Landfill of Opportunity

The fact that every FMCG company from Coke to Colgate continues to sell their goods in landfilling, ocean polluting trash has to be a huge opportunity.

After all, a business model that relies on discarding 18 million plastic bottles every hour in the US alone seems too easy to attack:

• only 25% of plastic bottles are recycled in the US, the rest of them end up in landfills or the ocean. (the image above represents 1.5 million bottles, the number discarded every 5 minutes in the US)
• 26 million tons of plastic are dumped into the seas every year.
• there are islands of trash twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific. Yes, Texas.

And while a few companies have taken a more sustainable approach with initiatives like 1% for the planet, most still feel good about themselves just for running "green" ads or adding a "please recycle" logo on their labels and passing on their responsibility to consumers.

The question for anyone sitting on the board of an FMCG giant then becomes: how much longer will the savings of doing business as usual will outweigh the financial and environmental danger of acting irresponsibly?

How much longer before a competitor changes the rules of the game, slashing short term revenue in favor of a more responsible approach that eventually catapults them into consumer Nirvana, making us look like a 21st century Exxon Valdez?

As consumer awareness grows through sobering reminders like the one below from Chris Jordan's work in Midway (2,000 miles from the nearest continent) and most companies continue their Detroit-like approach, a giant opportunity is created for visionaries willing to end irresponsible practices before they are enforced by law or a competitor.

sources: National Geographic, UN Environment Program, Earth 911