And the winner is… Coca-Cola. The famous brand of sodas has been named the 2022 “world champion” of plastic pollution, according to the ranking, published Tuesday, November 15, by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Break Free From Plastic. An unenviable title that the American company has won hands down for the fifth year in a row since its first edition in 2018. A distinction that leaves a mark when Coca-Cola is one of the sponsors of the United Nations conference on the climate (COP27), the high mass of the fight against climate change which is held in Sharm El-Sheikh, in Egypt, until November 18. “Coca-Cola, the biggest plastic polluter in the world, which sponsors COP27, is a pure “greenwashing” operation”denounces Emma Priestland, the coordinator of Break Free From Plastic.
Each year, the NGO, which brings together several thousand associations, sends its volunteers to the four corners of the world to collect the plastic waste produced by the industry and which ends up everywhere (beaches, rivers, parks, forests, streets, etc.), except in the trash. With a mission, not always obvious: to identify the brands behind this litter.
In 2022, more than 31,000 products (bottles or parts of bottles) stamped Coca-Cola were found in some forty countries. This is more than twice as many as in 2021 (13,834) and three times as many as in 2018 (9,300). This represents 7.32% of all plastic waste collected (429,994) in 2022. A proportion that has doubled since the first edition of the report, in 2018, when it stood at 3.64% (9,300 items out of a total of 255,429 rubbish). In five years, Break Free From Plastic volunteers have collected 85,035 products from the American company, almost as much as all the waste from the two other brands that complete the podium of the biggest plastic polluters: PepsiCo (50,558) and Nestle (27,008).
“It is shocking that a company with so much ties to the fossil industry is a partner in such a vital meeting for the climate as COP27”, adds Emma Priestland. Ninety-nine percent of plastic is made from fossil fuels, and packaging is an important outlet for the petrochemical industry. Each year, more than 100 billion plastic bottles leave the factories of the multinational. According to estimates by Greenpeace, the production of these bottles represents almost 15 million tons of CO emissions.2equivalent to the emissions of 3 million cars for one year.
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