There’s only room for one kind of packaged Coke products on campus, and the campus sustainability committee said it’s the one that not only fights climate change, but comes in an aluminum can.

Bob Thomas, director of the center for environmental communication, said he’s against the use of plastic bottles on campus in favor of switching to the more sustainable aluminum can products.

According to Thomas, bottling companies find it convenient to sell plastic bottles of soft drinks because they’re larger than cans and work well in vending machines. He said bottling companies sometimes argue that students like their soft drinks in bottles more because they can screw the cap back on.

Asia Stoll, international business sophomore, said she thinks it wouldn’t make much difference if Loyola decided to only sell Coke products in aluminum cans, but she would be concerned with how to store the beverage for later.

“I would buy the smaller coke can that can be finished in one swig,” Stoll said.

The issue with plastic bottles and sustainability is that plastic can’t be completely recycled with current technology. They can only be repurposed and made into other products like carpets or sweaters. However, aluminum is much more environmentally friendly.

“That can will eventually become a new can,” Thomas said.

Creating plastic bottles also puts more pressure on oil and gas, which affects climate change by releasing more carbon dioxide in the air.

According to Phoebe Cook, general manager of Loyola dinning services, Sodexo installed hydration stations in the Dana Center and Bobet in 2012 or 2013 to help bring awareness to the elimination of plastic water bottles

“With the use of these stations, we have diverted 108, 994 plastic bottles from being thrown away on campus,” Cook said.

Although Stoll said she sees the most problematic waste on campus come from Starbucks’ products, Thomas sees plastic bottles as a global issue because of the net gain of waste they leave behind after use.

“If they don’t get repurposed, they get buried,” Thomas said.

Thomas and the sustainability committee will be meeting with staff members from the Office of Student Affairs to propose eliminating plastic Coke product bottles on campus.

“We think that the socially just path forward is to use aluminum cans,” Thomas said.