Big Woop Dept: Coca Cola Unveils Compost-Friendly Fountain Cup

Coca-Cola debuted a new compostable fountain drink cup last week at the University of Washington. A step in the right direction, correct? Well, sort of—while this seems to be the sort of progressive, environmentally sound sort of initiative that should be applauded, a closer look seems to reveal an opportunistic PR stunt, leading me to say, Big Woop. Here's why.

The city of Seattle has passed a mandate that will require all packaging to be compostable by July of 2010. It seems evident to me that Coke has just seen an opportunity to up its green cred by turning in its homework early, and calling its compostable cup at UW a "pilot program" for compostable cups. But I haven't heard of any larger scale plans of any sort.

To be fair, the University of Washington did specifically request a compost-friendly cup from Coca-Cola—two years ago. They asked for the cup in early 2007, and now that compostable packaging is going to be the law—ooh look! Coke's compostable cup, a year and a half early! How green they are! Never mind that compostable paper cups have been around for years. Are we supposed to believe that the research team over at Coke has been stumped for years, and have only now developed an adequate compost-friendly cup?

Seems like suspiciously good timing to me. I might be off base here—anyone out there think this is a good move, regardless of PR concerns? Because as of now, I can't help but think the following:

So Coca-Cola has made a compostable cup for the University of Washington. Big Woop.

More on Coke:
Coke Pours Bad Business Ethics On Israeli Recycling Laws
Can Coke Save Lives?
Coca Cola is Going Green