I heard this more 10 years ago, haven't lately though.

I specifically asked a Coca-Cola representative about this some 25 years ago... And they were aware of it then. If they were aware of it then the general populace was aware of it because Coke is not going to make a move without there being a dollar in it for themselves

I always do that and have for years

Common knowledge seems to be slipping away, replaced with ignorant crap that people can't prove, but 'believe' anyway.

Take the Holocaust , for example...

There is a saying - 'Common sense is not a flower that blooms in everyone's garden'.
And in an America where intelligent thought and provable facts are superceded by
a faith whose mantra is "do not question, do not learn, just accept what you are told!', that puts a big
fat target on the back of even common sense.

Yeah I def grew up hearing about it. But I was watching PBS and Captain Planet, movies like fern gully in the late 80s/early 90s growin up: I think there’s a subset of my generation that became modern hippies/“indigo children” because of stuff like that, and/or our natural sensitivity to the planet. Whereas my parents will burn tires, pour oil in the ground and chuck a plastic bottle in a stream of its convenient because hey it washes away ? But I mean you get to tear something apart to save a sea critter? What’s not to like, you get to feel like a superhero in a small way. ??

I learned about it in the 80s while I was working at a hipster health food store.

I didn't know this, though it seems obvious now. But then I don't buy stuff in tins and I recycle all plastic so it would not have come up.