October 23, 2019
from TheMindUnleashed Website
for more plastic trash
than the next top
three polluters combined...
The report, released Wednesday, shows that the transnational soft drink conglomerate is responsible for more plastic trash than the next top three polluters combined.
Over 72,500 volunteers spread across 51 countries worked on beaches, in waterways, and walked along city streets picking up,
...and other waste during a one-day cleanup in September to complete the audit.
The report detailed how Coca-Cola was by far the top polluter, with 11,732 plastics recorded across 37 countries on four continents accounting for roughly 2.5 percent of total plastic waste analyzed in the report.
The company was,
Nestle and PepsiCo came in at second and third place, respectively, as the next top producers of plastic waste, with Mondelez International - the owner of popular snack brands like Oreo, Ritz, Nabisco, and Nutter Butter - and Unilever coming in as runners-up.
Other top 10 brands included,
In a statement, Break Free From Plastics blasted the companies ranking at the top of the audit for having,
Von Hernandez, the group's global coordinator, added:
Coca-Cola had previously admitted that it produces a staggering 3.3 million tons of plastic packaging per year, the rough equivalent of 200,000 bottles every minute, in figures released to The Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Many of the companies have pledged to make their products "100 percent recyclable," but Break Free From Plastic has blasted this as corporate propaganda that woefully falls short of addressing the real issue, noting that,
However, plastic bottles are only able to be recycled a few times before their polymer chains shorten, leading to a deterioration of quality.
Many plastics are also turned into products including clothing, construction material and other products which aren't ever recycled again.
The report said:
The use of plastic is key to the workings of the global economy, and while most global and local authorities acknowledge the huge harm it causes to the environment, its usage has also paved the way to spectacular advances in modern society in the fields of,
Yet in an economy that places the greatest incentive on short-term profit and a culture revolving around convenience and mass consumption, plastics have also become a curse - with a "throwaway" mentality and single-use disposable products displacing durable, reusable, and washable products.
As fracked natural gas supplies increase in the United States and across the world, the cost of producing and exporting plastics has become cheaper, making the plastic market hugely profitable once again for the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries.