Coke’s Trash in the Grand Canyon!

What can you buy with $13 million? If you're Coca-Cola, you can buy enough influence with the National Parks Service to cancel plans to make the Grand Canyon more environmentally friendly.

Plastic water bottles are the biggest single source of garbage in America's most iconic national park. So the National Parks Service had a plan: ban the sale of plastic water bottles in the Grand Canyon and invest in refillable water stations instead. The park was just weeks from implementing the ban -- and then Coca Cola stepped in.

According to the New York Times, Coca Cola -- which has donated $13 million to national parks -- asked the National Park Service to not ban the sale of plastic water bottles. Incredibly, the head of the National Parks Service bowed to Coke, and cancelled the Grand Canyon's bottle ban.

When a Change.org member who's dedicated himself to stopping plastic waste, saw that Coke forced the Grand Canyon to keep selling plastic water bottles, he started a petition on Change.org to bring back the bottle ban.

Plastic bottle waste doesn't just harm the Grand Canyon. Bottles can get swept up by the Colorado River, which runs through the park, and then dumped into the ocean. Countless animals and environments are forever harmed by plastic waste that originates in the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon National Park wouldn't be the first to ban the sale of plastic water bottles. In 2008, Zion National Park in Utah banned plastic water bottles. The National Park Service even gave the park an environmental achievement award for eliminating 60,000 plastic bottles from the park in its first year.

Supporters of the ban fear that the National Park Service is becoming increasingly dependent on corporate donations as its budget shrinks, making our national parks vulnerable to pressure from companies like Coke. It's important to show the National Park Service that people don't want Coca-Cola to call the shots in our nation's parks, especially when it comes to protecting the environment.

Please click here to add your name to the petition calling on the National Park Service to reinstate the ban on selling plastic water bottles in the Grand Canyon.

Thanks for being an awesome change-maker!