|

This week, the Coca-Cola Company was named the world’s biggest plastic polluter for the fifth year in a row in Break Free From Plastic’s Brand Audit report. The annual Brand Audit is a global community science project that analyzes plastic waste by over 200,000 volunteers in 87 countries and territories. The effort has found the same fast moving consumer goods companies are the top plastic polluters year over year and calls for both a reduction in the use of unnecessary single use plastic and a Global Plastics Treaty to address the problem.

In response, Defend Our Health’s Senior Market Campaigner, Maya Rommwatt, said: 

“The prize for the world’s worst plastic polluter is not a recognition Coca-Cola should be proud of, but it’s a fitting distinction for the brand that drives demand for a product it chooses to package in toxic, wasteful, and climate crisis-inducing plastic bottles, simply because it’s cheap. The comprehensive analysis of the Brand Audit is further evidence of the failure of fast moving consumer goods companies to voluntarily solve the problems they’ve manufactured, and further proof of the need for a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty. 

Toxic plastic pollution is a monumental global problem rooted in and exacerbating environmental racism. Up and down the plastics supply chain the most vulnerable communities are the most exposed to dangerous toxic chemicals, from the folks living next door to chemical plants making PET plastic to the waste pickers who play an integral role in global plastic collection. While it’s a step in the right direction for Coca-Cola and Pepsi to recognize the human rights of waste pickers in the just-launched Fair Circularity Initiative, the commitments must be acted upon and tracked before congratulations are in order, and these brands should also be looking closely at the way their business models are adding to environmental racism in the US. 

Coca-Cola is clearly not doing enough to make its products safer for consumers and the world–in fact its use of virgin petrochemical plastic is increasing. Companies should be held accountable for the full chemical burden of their products, not encouraged to use ever-more plastic made from oil and gas.”