Coca-Cola has topped the global list of worst corporate plastic polluters for the third year running. In last year’s Break Free From Plastic audit, almost 14,000 Coca-Cola-branded plastics were recorded in 51 countries – that’s more plastic than the next two top polluters, PepsiCo and Nestlé, combined. They’re followed by Unilever, Mondelez International, Mars, Procter & Gamble, Philip Morris International, Colgate-Palmolive and Perfetti Van Melle.
The audit reveals that single-use sachets, which are used to sell small amounts of tomato sauce, coffee, shampoo and other products, were the most common plastic item of rubbish found, followed by cigarette butts and plastic bottles. Food packaging was the most common product type, followed by smoking materials and household products.
Kathleen Collins, a campaign strategist at the Climate Reality Project, says plastics account for 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. “To put that in perspective, if plastic use were a country, it would be the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world,” she says.
The Break Free From Plastic movement is urging companies to reveal the amount of single-use plastic they use, set targets for reducing their production, and ultimately “reinvent their product delivery systems to move beyond single-use plastic altogether”.
