A new study on plastic pollution in 84 countries has linked half of branded plastic pollution to only 56 firms, with about 24% of the branded plastic waste analyzed connected to only five companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Danone and Altria.
A team of researchers analyzed plastic pollution data from the Break Free From Plastic Brand Audit. The data spanned a total of 1,576 brand audit events over five years, from 2018 to 2022.
The analysis revealed about 52% of the 1,873,634 plastic items in the study were unbranded, which could be because sunlight, water or other environmental factors caused fading on labels.
“We found over 50% of plastic items were unbranded, highlighting the need for better transparency about production and labeling of plastic products and packaging to enhance traceability and accountability,” the authors wrote in the study, which was published in the journal Science Advances. “We suggest creation of an international, open-access database into which companies are obliged to […]
Corporations are using (abusing) the earth as a commons to cost shift the clean up of their packaging to governments at large. The classic “privatize the profits, socialize the costs” model. We can mandate, for example, returning to glass bottling which can easily be recycled. The question is: Do we have the political will? This model can be replicated to many other industries. The structures are in place. Corporations must be forced to use them.
Requiring companies world wide to identify the plastic they produce and market for consumers to see is a necessary step to take in reducing plastic waste build-up.