Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestlé remain biggest plastic polluters

For the third year in a row, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé have been declared the largest plastic polluters in the world by the Break Free From Plastic movement.

Coca-Cola is the largest culprit

Every year, Break Free From Plastic carries out research by parks, beaches and landfills. Around 15,000 volunteers around the world collaborate by collecting and counting plastic waste. In doing so, they try to track down the biggest polluters. This year the volunteers collected 346,494 pieces of plastic waste in 55 countries. In almost two-thirds of the cases, they were able to identify the manufacturer of the waste, writes Belgian newspaper De Standaard.

Bottles of Coca-Cola were the most frequently found item. The volunteers collected a total of 13,834 bottles. This puts the company first in the ranking in 51 of the 55 countries studied. Just like the past two years, Nestlé and PepsiCo make up the remainder of the top three. Of those companies, respectively, 8,633 and 5,155 pieces of plastic were collected.

“No Surprise”

“It’s not surprising to see the same big brands revealed as the world’s biggest plastic polluters for three years in a row. These companies claim to tackle the plastic crisis but continue to invest in false solutions and work with oil companies to produce even more plastic. To end this mess and combat climate change, multinationals like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé need to end their dependency on disposable plastic packaging and move away from fossil fuels,” said Abigail Aguilar, Regional Coordinator Plastics Campaign, Greenpeace Southeast Asia.