Four hundred and eighty-four cleanups
in over 50 countries and 6 continents, organised by the Break Free From Plastic
movement in September, identified the top polluting companies. The rest of the
companies rounding out the top 10 polluters are Mondelēz International,
Unilever, Mars, Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Phillip Morris, and Perfetti
Van Melle.
“This report provides more evidence that corporations
urgently need to do more to address the plastic pollution crisis they’ve
created. Their continued reliance on single-use plastic packaging translates to
pumping more throwaway plastic into the environment. Recycling is not going to
solve this problem. Break Free From Plastic’s nearly 1,800 member organizations
are calling on corporations to urgently reduce their production of single-use
plastic and find innovative solutions focused on alternative delivery systems
that do not create pollution,” said Von Hernandez, global coordinator of the
Break Free From Plastic movement.
This year’s most frequently
identified companies in the brand audits – Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and PepsiCo – have offered mostly false solutions to the plastics crisis, underscoring how important it is for voices from
beyond the consumer goods sector to demand accountability and call for an end
to single-use plastics. The list of top polluters is again filled with some of
the world’s most commonly known brands.
“Recent commitments by corporations like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and
PepsiCo to address the crisis unfortunately continue to rely on false
solutions like replacing plastic with paper or bioplastics and relying more
heavily on a broken global recycling system. These strategies largely protect
the outdated throwaway business model that caused the plastic pollution crisis,
and will do nothing to prevent these brands from being named the top polluters
again in the future,” said Abigail Aguilar, Greenpeace Southeast Asia plastic
campaign coordinator.
“The products and packaging that
brands like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and
PepsiCo are churning out is turning our recycling system into garbage. China
has effectively banned the import of the US and other exporting countries’
‘recycling,’ and other countries are following suit. Plastic is being burned in
incinerators across the world, exposing communities to toxic pollution. We must
continue to expose these real culprits of our plastic and recycling crisis,”
said Denise Patel, US Coordinator for the Global Alliance for
Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).
In Sri Lanka, Centre for Environmental Justice and over 50 volunteers
conducted the Brand audit in two locations i.e. Crow Island in Colombo and
Matara and according to the results Coca Cola, Unilever and Nestle tops the
single use plastics said Hemantha Withanage, Executive Director of the Eco
Group CEJ.
ENDS
NOTES
This report is published under the responsibility
of Greenpeace Philippines