Coca-Cola has been declared the brand with the highest plastic pollution by Break Free From Plastic.
Results of a global audit
A recent audit examining global plastic pollution showed that Coca-Cola is the world's largest company contributing to plastic contamination. The audit conducted by Break Free From Plastic included 848 clean-up events in 51 countries across 6 continents. In total, 72,541 volunteers combed beaches, streets, waterways and their local surroundings collecting plastic waste.
The organisation collected 47,500 plastic packaging items worldwide. Among them, Coca-Cola packaging was the most common, followed by Nestle in second place and PepsiCo further down.
Coca-Cola's response
Coca-Cola issued its response to the presented results: "Every time our packaging ends up in our oceans — or anywhere it should not be — it is not acceptable to us. We are working in partnership to address this significant global problem, both to reduce the amount of plastic waste entering our oceans and to clean up existing pollution."
If we look at individual continents, the podium includes brands such as Starbucks and Heineken!
The aim of the clean-up was both to help clear public spaces of plastic pollution and to identify the companies responsible for most of the plastic waste lying on our planet.
The scale of the plastic bottle problem
While we promote increased efforts to maximise recycling statistics, global research shows that more than 1,000,000 plastic bottles are bought every minute, of which 91% are not recycled.
Moreover, it is estimated that over half a trillion plastic bottles will be sold next year, and around 455 billion of them will not be recycled.
Those bottles that are not recycled end up in landfills, are incinerated, or make their way through rivers into the ocean.
How to reduce pollution?
The increasingly visible problem of single-use plastics highlights the need to address it partly through three strategies:
- Smart consumer choices - informing consumers about the need for and practice of recycling single-use plastics.
- Easy and efficient recycling - developing infrastructure in which recycling is easy for the consumer to use and efficient enough to be economically viable.
- Moving away from plastics - encouraging companies to develop alternative materials, to use non-plastic materials, and to change the way they think about their products so they are not based solely on single-use plastic containers.
While companies such as Coca-Cola have made efforts to reduce the plastic pollution problem of which they are part, many people believe they are not doing enough to meaningfully minimise the issue.
There is no perfect solution, and as long as plastic remains an effective and inexpensive material, political and environmental pressure is the primary mechanism through which companies will be encouraged to change.
Summary
The Break Free From Plastic audit showed that Coca-Cola is responsible for the most plastic waste found during clean-up campaigns in 51 countries. Nestle and PepsiCo came next. In total, 47,500 packaging items were collected, and Starbucks and Heineken were also listed among the most polluting brands on various continents.
The problem is enormous: more than a million plastic bottles are bought every minute, of which 91% are not recycled. It is estimated that as many as 455 billion bottles will not be processed next year. Experts point to three key strategies: consumer education, developing recycling infrastructure, and companies moving away from single-use plastic.
