Survey finds that 60 firms are responsible for half of world’s plastic pollution

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.

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

When traveling I've found that I can buy and refill aluminum water bottles.

Like this: https://www.mananalu.com/

And this: https://www.amazon.com/RAIN-Plastic-Free-Recyclable-Friendly-Aluminum/dp/B08Y946G7Z/ref=asc_df_B08Y946G7Z?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80882941400087&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=m&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4584482469946349&psc=1

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.

BarterClub,

That’s because they are the only people that own 50% + of the market.

RememberTheApollo_,

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.

MakePorkGreatAgain,

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.

phoenixz,

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?

WoahWoah,

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.

SlopppyEngineer,

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.

boredtortoise,

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

NarrativeBear,

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.

Hugh_Jeggs,

The largest number of discarded coke bottles I’ve ever seen in my life was on a camel trip through the Sahara 🥺

DancingBear,

Really?

Hugh_Jeggs,

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

SeaJ,

*branded plastic pollution

Most plastic pollution is not branded.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Think the unthinkable- what if we not only still sold most of our beverages in recyclable glass bottles, what if we also offered money to recycle them?

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

Don't forget aluminum!

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Aluminum is theoretically recyclable an unlimited number of times, so the cans are much less of an issue.

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

My point is aluminum and glass are much better than plastic.

NarrativeBear,

I think one or the draw backs with aluminium cans though is they still have that plastic lining inside?

Coke cans and most pop for example still have plastic inside. Canada even recently made a paper wine bottle, but believe it or not, plastic bag inside a paper bottle.

Redredme,

When i was young we had glass bottles for everything.

Thank god for PET bottles.

PET is just as easily recyclable as glass and it doesnt break when the bottle falls or explode during temperature swings. Next to that its weighs not even 10% of a glass bottle thus saving a lot of transportation costs. Creating a PET bottle costs a fraction of a glass bottle. Nobody ever died because of a cut vein by a PET bottle. Glass on the other hand…

PET is way better for the environment then glass ever will be.

I lived in the 70s/80s as a kid and there are very good reasons why we stopped with glass. Glass bottles for pop sucked ass, big times.

And the recycle money scheme also works on PET bottles. I know that also for a fact. Why? I live in the EU. We’re doing that for like… Forever.

In the end its not the companies who just jug it onto the roadside or dont recycle shit. It’s us. We’re the assholes. We find it too hard to put something in the right bin. We find it too hard having 4 bins at home for recycling. We find it too hard to just keep our waste with us in the car. Its nasty. Just open the window and throw it out.

Putting everything in glass will solve nothing. Then, instead of forever plastic we’re left with forever glass. People are lazy assholes. Accept it and start work on that, not the symptoms.

And maybe… Maybe Carlin was right about plastic. (if you dont know what im talking about, which I cannot believe, search “carlin earth plastic” on YouTube. And choose the longest one for the entire sketch)

ABCDE,

This is not true.

Redredme,

Great substantiation. Thanks for that clear insight.

ABCDE,

My insight is that it’s my area of expertise, it is clearly not yours.

Redredme,

Hahaha, great one.

Hobbes,

This will hopefully be the dumbest thing I read today. But I assume this is a troll or a PR person.

stoy,

I get your point about PET bottles needing less energy to make and transport, but that is only looking at the energy use and co2 pollution.

You absolutely right there, but the article focuses on microplastics, another huge issue.

Is the microplastics issue worse than the co2 issue?

I am tempted to say “depends”, we don’t fully know the health impact of being exposed to microplastics constantly. We don’t know the long term effects of a planet being covered in microplastics, but it doesn’t look brilliant.

So you can’t say thay PET is outright better for the environment than glass.

PET is better in some ways, glass it better in others, which will win, no idea…

KevonLooney,

The real issue is: single servings are wasteful. If you make more food at home you’ll save money, eat healthier, and use less plastic and energy.

Eximius,

I think you have to hike through largely untouched forests to a very remote lake to find sharp glass shards scattered across the little beach to realize that glass maybe isn’t the most environmentally-sound magic-solution that some people would like to think. It can be just as (and much worse) strong at causing ecological catastrophies that are incredibly expensive to clean up.

The symptoms are: littered streets, nature.

The causes: fuckfaced fuckwads for people. In all areas of society.

themadcodger,
@themadcodger@kbin.earth avatar

Hey, make sure you guys don't use plastic straws anymore, and turn the water off when you're lathering up in the shower. 🙄

EdibleFriend,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

Remember its your straw that killed all the turtles tho.

DancingBear,

Hallelujah

jeffw,

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.

PriorityMotif,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

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.

jeffw,

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.

PriorityMotif,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

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)

PriorityMotif,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

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.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Really? That’s exactly the order I would have expected.

Zehzin,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

I expected McDonald’s to be up there.

Hugh_Jeggs,

Maccies has had paper cups, fry holders and wrappers for at least two decades, and now everything used within the, er, “restaurant” is reusable

Is it different where you are?

sukhmel,

They still use plastic straws in some places, and paper cups contain plastic, but yeah they don’t seem to produce so much of (plastic) waste

Zehzin,
@Zehzin@lemmy.world avatar

Definitely plastic cups but paper straws for some reason

jeffw,

PepsiCo is bigger than Coke, for one

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

PepsiCo owns Lays, which makes dry food. Coca-Cola mostly stays with beverages these days.

jeffw,

Sure, but some of that food is in plastic containers. Pepsi owns a shit ton of brands. By revenue, they are twice as big as Coke

sukhmel,

Then it makes them four times more ecological in a way, if that’s even applicable to a company producing that much pollution

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I’d say the facts speak for themselves.

tsonfeir,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

🔥

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

I would have thought Nestle to be higher. They are massive pieces of shit that poison children, after all. I figured they’d be putting plastic in the ocean on purpose like a Captain Planet antagonist.

WhyDoYouPersist,

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!

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