Study confirms Altria, Philip Morris International, Danone, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are worst offenders
Fewer than 60 multinationals are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, with six responsible for a quarter of that, based on the findings of a piece of research published on Wednesday.
The researchers concluded that for every percentage increase in plastic produced, there was an equivalent increase in plastic pollution in the environment.
“Production really is pollution,” says one of the study’s authors, Lisa Erdle, director of science at the non-profit The 5 Gyres Institute.
An international team of volunteers collected and surveyed more than 1,870,000 items of plastic waste across 84 countries over five years: the bulk of the rubbish collected was single-use packaging for food, beverage, and tobacco products.
The top five brands globally were The Coca-Cola Company (11%), PepsiCo (5%), Nestlé (3%), Danone (3%), and Altria (2%), accounting for 24% of the total branded count
I would’ve expected a slightly different order, but those companies also control about 24% of the food we buy, so… not surprising.
They mostly don’t make their own plastic containers. You have to make a shitton of plastic bottles and caps to make money and there are companies that only make empty plastic bottles and companies that only make plastic caps. Look at the bottom of your plastic bottles and caps for Logos of the companies that produced them.
Did you read the article? It’s not about who made the plastic containers at all, it’s about which company made the product that they contain.
When they hire a private company to make their packaging, then there are no public records on how much plastic they actually buy. (It’s in the millions of tons per year range) It also doesn’t account for the amount of energy used to produce packaging (it’s a a fuckton)
I didn’t know why I’m being downvoted, I worked at a plastic bottle factory making millions of bottles per day for many different big companies, including some listed there. They make the bottles and ship them empty to the companies to be filled.
Hey, make sure you guys don’t use plastic straws anymore, and turn the water off when you’re lathering up in the shower. 🙄
*branded plastic pollution
Most plastic pollution is not branded.
I always bring my refillable Nalgenes, Stanleys, Yetis, Corksicles, and Hydro Flasks to the Coke headquarters to fill up my family’s monthly allotment of soda. Take that, Big Plastic!
About 10-12 years back i went to Dominican (outside of resort’s). It was eye opening in a sense, though what shocked me then was the amount of empty 2L bottle everywhere, it was insane.
The largest number of discarded coke bottles I’ve ever seen in my life was on a camel trip through the Sahara 🥺
Really?
No, most of the time you couldn’t see the coke bottles for the discarded shopping bags 😥
Morocco is a beautiful country, but the inhabitants treat it like a giant fuckin dustbin. It’s absolutely disgusting
That’s sort of like saying one species is responsible for the overwhelming amount of pollution. It makes it seem like there’s an easily identifiable culprit, but you’re talking about 60 firms involved in like… everything you use and interact with every day.
It’s pretty clear that as these and the rest of the companies decide what products and services are available, their marketing ploy to shift responsibility to consumer choice doesn’t hold water
It’s also saying that in theory of we can make these few companies to change their way we can make a very big difference, and also saying that in practice these behemoths wil fight any change tooth and nail and use their oversized political influence to do so.
The two tobacco companies Altria and Philip Morris International combined made up 2% of the branded plastic litter found, both Danone and Nestlé each produced 3% of it, PepsiCo was responsible for 5% of the discarded packaging, and 11% of branded plastic waste could be traced to the Coca-Cola company.
I would have thought Nestle would be far higher considering how many other brands it owns and how widespread its products are.
When traveling I’ve found that I can buy and refill aluminum water bottles.
Like this: https://www.mananalu.com/
More than once now I’ve found water in an aluminium bottle at a grocery store while traveling. Buy one and refill. Works great and less to pack.
that’s how economies of scale work. unless the majority of the population (globally) boycotts all of those companies and their subsidiaries, which isnt going to happen, nothing will change.
someone else just needs to start a business model around cleaning up plastic pollution - it’s certainly never going to go away on its own.
Great, can we please finally jail those in charge? Can we then sue those companies for all they’re worth so that we can use that money to clean up said plastic?
That’s because they are the only people that own 50% + of the market.
Remember its your straw that killed all the turtles tho.
Hallelujah
